


No man's land

by randomisedmongoose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - World War I, Beau/Yasha but not the focus of the story, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Mentions of Eugenics, POV Beauregard Lionett, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Past Torture, Physical Abuse, Temporary Character Death, War, shell-shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27109855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomisedmongoose/pseuds/randomisedmongoose
Summary: In 1916, The Great War continues. A rag-tag bunch of misfits, thrown together by fate, orders and bad decisions, strike out across the battlefields of the Western front on a covert mission to prevent a potentially decisive turn in the war. But they have more in common than they know at first, and their mission is not what it seems to be...
Comments: 39
Kudos: 106





	1. The Somme

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a Great War AU, but it’s not entirely historical. There are some fantastical elements in it that’ll come out in time. Also, other genders than men are allowed to die uselessly in the trenches!

It was late. Late in the day, late in the year, and far, far too late for the millions of poor souls who had perished in this long and pointless war. The only thing that was early was the shelling, which had started up again ahead of schedule. Private Lionette kept her head down against the sprays of mud and cupped her soggy dog-end in one cold hand, shielding it from the drizzle. She swore under her breath as she failed to light it, the tobacco tumbling out of the disintegrating paper and scattering in her lap. The ground shook again, making her jerk and drop the last bit of paper between the slats of the makeshift bench. She stared at the spot where it disappeared and sighed.

“Hey, Lionette.”

“What?” She looked up to see a young man in an ordonnance’s uniform standing in front of her. He looked her up and down with a disdainful smile. She vaguely remembered him – she’d been in a fight with a couple of his friends over rations a week or so back. She’d lost, in the end, but had left a bunch of them with black eyes and split lips. They’d all been threatened with the crucifixion for a repeat offence. She grinned to herself at the memory.

“Brass hats wants to talk to ya.” The young man rummaged around in his bag and held out a piece of paper. She snatched it from his hand and peered at it in the gloom.

“Brass hats? Shit, what for?”

The young man looked irritated. “You think they tells me that? Just get the hell over there so’s I don’t get yelled at, alright.”

“Screw you.”

He made a face at her and left, crouching and hopping over the legs of the other soldiers who sat huddled in long lines along the walls of the trench. She sighed, grabbed her pack and stood up with a stoop, brushing the remnants of her lost cigarette from her uniform. As she made her way towards the headquarter back in the nearest reserve trench, she made a half-hearted attempt to get the lapels straight, then gave it up as a botched job.

She wasn’t overly tall, this Beauregard Lionette, but she had a tall demeanour. She was lean and, by all accounts, mean, well prepared for the rigours of war by a short lifetime full of bad decisions and hard lessons. She had dark skin and fine features marred by scars and a permanent scowl. Before entering the army, she’d sported a ragged side-cut, but the mud and the cooties had reduced that to a close shave. At least she didn’t have a beard to take care of.

She made her way along the winding walls of the trench. The faces of the soldiers she passed were closed in, tired, dirty. Many of them held their hands over their ears; others were too jaded to spend energy on trying to block the noise out and weathered the shelling dispassionately. As she moved back from the front line, the sprays of mud subsided and the noise of the shelling was reduced to a constant thunder.

When she reached the little staff tent, she stopped for a second and tried one last time to make herself at least a little more presentable, then became angry at herself for trying. _Why the fuck should I preen for them? What’re they gonna do, send me to the front? You know damn well what they can do_ , she retorted. _They can shoot you, or worse, find out about you. Keep you godsdamn head down, survive this._

One of the guards looked at his companion in confusion, as the soldier in front of him made no move to talk but stood still, lost in thought. He took a step forward and waved a hand in front of Beau’s face.

“Hey,” he said in a kindly voice. “You wanted something?”

Beau jolted a little, then rallied. “Yeah. Yes. I got a summons.”

The guard looked her up and down. “Got papers?”

She waved the note at him. He took it and read it carefully.

“Alright.” He returned the note and waved her in.

The assembled officers looked up as she entered. She blinked in the sharp lights and looked around in surprise. Red tabs. They didn’t usually come to the front. These were high-ranking officers. She made a perfunctory show of standing up a bit straighter. A thickset older woman with the insignia of a brigadier-general put down the map she’d been studying. She whispered with a young colonel who showed her a place in some documents, then nodded at Beau.

“Ah. Private… Lionette, yes?” The woman consulted the documents again. “Ah yes. Beauregard Lionette.”

A muscular major with long side-whiskers smirked. “Like the wine, by Jingo!”

Beau gritted her teeth. “Yes, sir.”

“I do think we have some of your family’s vintage here.” He went over to a little sideboard and pulled out a bottle. “Here we go, an 1898. Good year, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah. Really good. Sir.”

It was, and she’d bet good money that she knew who had supplied it. He opened the bottle and poured some for himself, the colonel and the brigadier-general but offering none to Beau. The brigadier-general took the glass and sipped at the fine vintage, looking at Beau over the rim.

“You have been selected for a mission, private. You were recommended due to your… background,” she continued. “Your, shall we say, aberrant behaviour.”

“Background, sir?” The panic shot through her. _What do they know? What has father told them?_

“Don’t play coy with us, private,” the major replied. “We know of your criminal involvement before this. We are also well aware of the fact that you did not enlist, but rather that you were, as it were, dumped on our doorstep.” He swirled the dark red liquid around. “As a favour to your father and for the contributions he has done for the war effort, we spirited you away to the front post-haste.”

The major saluted her with the wine-glass, smiling. Beauregard stared at him. _I fucking knew it. I knew it! That bastard!_ Her fists were trembling from the effort of not jumping the major and smashing said fists into his hairy face, again, and again, and again…

“…which I think you’ll be pleased to hear.”

Beau woke from her private revelry. “I’m sorry, sir?”

The colonel sighed. “I _said_ , private, that the reason we called you here would be a chance for you to leave the front, which I think you’ll be pleased to hear.”

She took a deep breath. “And what’s that reason, sir?”

The brigadier-general put her glass down and leaned over the table. “There’s a little task that needs to be done, private Lionette. A very delicate task. You and a group of other soldiers will move from your position here in Somme to Verdun, where you will progress into German territory and perform this task. We think you are amiably suited for it. With the right leadership, of course.” She made a gesture, and a slick-haired young man with an impeccably cared-for uniform took a step forward. “This is your commanding officer for this mission. He’ll fill you in on the particulars. Captain Stone, meet the last of your patrol. Private Lionette? You will answer to captain Stone during this mission. He will report your conduct back to us, so none of your lip, understand?”

Beau gritted her teeth again. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The brigadier-general nodded at the captain. ”You have your orders, captain. Get your group ready and progress as per the plan.”

“Yes, sir!” The captain ripped off a perfect salute. Beau hated him. The handsome young man nodded to her.

“Come along, private. Let’s make introductions.”

The major saluted her with the wine glass again as they left. It took all her willpower to not give him a few parting words. Instead, hoisted the pack on her back and tagged along behind the captain, squelching through the mud and drizzle. She noticed that all his gear looked pristine, barely used, and the he had a bounce in his step that you’d never seen in a frontline veteran. Newly transferred, then. Or newly recruited, even. Probably an Eton boy, fast-tracked to command. She made a face at him behind his back and spit to get rid of the sour taste in her mouth.

“What’s all this about, then?”

He glanced at her. “I’ll fill you in when we’re underway, private. Best not to talk about it here.” He looked around at the soldiers milling about.

“Yeah, right. Who’re you? Why’d you get this mission?”

“Fjord. Fjord Stone. _Captain_ Fjord Stone.” It sounded like he was trying to convince himself just as much as her.

“Yeah, yeah, three bird’s dos, no crown. I have eyes, cap. So, Fjord, eh? Stupid name. Got Norwegian parents or something?”

He stopped and frowned at her. “I can see that the reports about you haven’t been overexaggerated, private. How come you haven’t been court-marshalled yet?”

“I’m too useful.” _And they don’t want to piss my father off, unless he decides to stop sending them wine_ , she didn’t add. He snorted but didn’t reply.

They stopped some hundred meters away at a munitions cache. The captain looked around before he opened the tent flap, trying to look inconspicuous and only succeeding in looking more suspicious. Beau rolled her eyes and pushed past him into the tent. The captain hurried in after her and made a gesture towards the five people seated on boxes and crates inside.

“Private Lionette, meet the team. Team, this is private Beauregard Lionette, our last recruit.”

One of the five jumped up and came at her, hand outstretched and a huge smile on her face – a small, cute brunette in a medic’s uniform.

“Hi! Nice to mee you!”

“Uh, sure.” Beau took the hand, whose owner pumped it up and down excitedly.

“Private Lavorre of the French Army Medical Corps,” she offered in a light French accent. “My mum named me Genevieve, but everyone calls me Jester.”

“Hey, yeah, pleased to meet you.” Beau managed to free her hand from the enthusiastic grip. “You, uh, speak great English.”

“Thank you! I learned a lot from my mum. She’s a courtesan, you see. The best prostitute in Marseille!”

Beau’s eyebrows shot up. The others were suddenly looking everywhere else than at the bubbly medic. A short, dumpy, brown-skinned woman was visibly shaking with silent laughter, and the scruffy, scrawny ginger beside her had gone red-faced and uncomfortable. The muscular, pale woman leaning against a mortar pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. The only person not looking perturbed was the extremely tall and painfully thin man in a heavy greatcoat who was dreamily looking out into empty space while smoking his pipe.

The captain rallied first. He forced a smile and clapped his hands together. “Well, no time for dilly-dallying, crew. Get busy, load up on your gear and let’s head out.” He turned to Beau. “Private, the others have already gathered their personal effects. Have you got everything you need?”

Beau nodded to the pack slung over her shoulder. “Got my stuff here, cap.”

“Good. Then let’s load up and head out. More info will be forthcoming.”

The group got up in silence and gathered what little effects they had. The tall, thin man had the most gear – a large pack with several pots and pans tied to it, as well as a myriad of little pouches and packets, all neatly wrapped up in wax paper or canvas and stuck on any which way. The others hand more or less normal gear, except for the short woman, who had a long, thin package wrapped up in oilcloth that she handled with some care. As they waited for the medic, who had lost her canteen, a nightingale fluttered down and perched on the oilcloth bundle. The raggedy ginger smiled shyly and whistled at it. It flew up and circled his head twice, then flew off. He looked longingly after it.

The captain led them some way away to a waiting horse-cart. The old nag looked at them without curiosity as they loaded up, and began walking at a slow but continuous pace when the tall man took the reins and smacked at it. The little cart took them along a pitted path about a kilometre beyond the front lines until they reached one of the larger supply roads. The supplies and packs were loaded into a lorry, and the group followed suit. Well inside, the captain talked shortly with the driver, then sat back with the others and took his cap off and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

“There,” he said as he lit one. “We’ve got a couple hours’ ride until we reach the train line to Verdun, so make yourself comfortable. Why don’t we get to know each other a bit better, eh? Private, eh, Lavorre we know already.”

The medic waved cheerfully. Beau grinned and looked around at the others. Her eyes met with those of the tall, thin man. Now that he’d shed his heavy coat, she noticed that he was dressed in the green garb of a field chaplain of the Temple of the All-Mother. He reminded her more than anything of a beanpole, wrapped around with vibrant, healthy leaves. He gave her a lazy wave, then lit the pipe again. The smoke began to drift around the lorry, filling it with an aromatic haze.

“Hey. Caduceus Clay,” he offered in a good-natured Australian drawl. “Very happy to meet you all.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Why the deuce would we need a devil dodger on a covert mission?”

He shrugged. “You never know.” He seemed completely unfazed by her rudeness and took a slow draught on his pipe. “Who knows what we’ll meet? If we don’t need the Mother, I’m also good at noticing things.”

The short woman chuckled. “You’re selling yourself short, padre. I hear that you can suss out a lie from across an encampment.”

The chaplain shrugged and smiled. “Maybe so.”

The captain smiled as well, but looked weirdly uncomfortable. Beau filed the observation away along with the growing list of incongruent facts about the man. She looked back to the short woman.

“Why you here, then?”

“I volunteered,” the woman answered in a high-pitched Cockney accent and leaned back against the scrawny ginger, who adjusted his posture to accommodate her.

Beau frowned. “Seriously? You got a death wish or something?”

“Nope. Just is where he goes, I go.” She pointed a thumb backwards towards her companion. “Two peas in a pod.”

“Yeah? What’s your name then, pea?”

The dumpy woman grinned at her. “Private Veth Brenatto. But you can call me Goblin, everyone does.”

Beau’s eyes widened. “Goblin Brenatto? Bloody hell! You're that sniper! You're a bleeding death machine. Only Pegahmagabow has more kills than you!”

The sniper doffed her cap and grinned even wider. “Yeah, but I try harder.”

“Brenatto… So are you like, Italian?”

Veth rolled her eyes. “Do I sound like an Italian? We’re from London, frenchie.”

Beau panicked. “I’m not French! Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she said hurriedly towards the medic. “Sorry. I know my name sounds like it’s French. But it’s not.”

Veth put her hands up in surprise. “Relax, no need to get in a flap over it. My gran was from Sicily.”

“Aha. Yeah, I see.” Beau looked over to the man sitting beside the little sniper. He was unshaved with tangled hair, as thin as the chaplain but much more unhealthy-looking. She wondered if he was sick in some way.

“So, you’re the reason she’s here?”

He looked up, then down again quickly. “Um. Yes. Caleb, uh, Widogast.”

She eyed the rank insignia on his shoulder, a single chevron. “Lance-corporal Caleb Widogast? Huh. Why’re you here then? Sir,” she added as an afterthought.

He kept his eyes downcast and rubbed his arm. “I'm, uh. I'm an explosives expert. They thought it might be, um. Useful.”

Veth patted his shoulder. “Mortars, daisy-cutters, grenades, flares, whatever you want, Caleb’ll manage it”, she offered. “He knows his fire, my boy does.”

Caleb looked profoundly uncomfortable at this declaration and offered nothing more about himself. Beau looked over at the last person, a long, muscular woman who was comfortably leaned back against a stack of crates. She had a single line tattooed across her lower lip and down her chin, dark hair and a neutral expression. Beau eyed her openly, and the woman returned her stare.

“And you?”

“I’m Yasha.” Her accent was flat and slightly unsure, like she was unsure of her grasp of the language.

“Yasha…?

“Nydoorin.”

Beau chuckled. “That a really cooky name.”

Yasha kept staring at her. “No it isn’t.”

“…right. Where you from?”

“Siberia.”

“Wrong front for you, isn’t it?” Veth interjected.

Yasha glanced at her. “I was transferred.”

“What for?”

“They said they needed someone who can protect you.”

Beau bristled. “Hey, I can protect myself plenty well!”

“Sure. But I’m better.”

“We’ll see about that.” Beau tapped the side of her nose, and was gratified when the woman actually cracked a small smile.

Veth stretched out and put her head in Caleb’s lap. “So, captain, now that we’re all friends, isn’t it time you told us what all this is about? The red tabs were awfully cagey about it.”

“I should hope so, since that’s classified information,” the captain replied with a sideways glance at the driver. “But yes, it’s time.” He rubbed his clean-shaven chin uncomfortably and took another draught on the cigarette. He looked around at the group, then sighed.

“How am I going to say this… You’re all here because you can provide something special to what is essentially a suicide mission.” He put a hand up as Jester and Beau both started to say something. “Before you say anything... I’ve been informed that this is not a request. This is an order, and if you refuse to do this, you’ll be up before a firing squad.” He looked around at the group. “That includes me. I’m sorry. But I’ve also been informed that if we’re successful, we’ll all be allowed to ask for anything, including an honourable discharge or a promotion.”

There was some muttering, but he put his hand up again. “I’m sure that you’ve noticed that the war effort isn’t going… altogether swimmingly.”

“No shit,” Beau scoffed.

“At least we’re at a stalemate right now. But some time ago, Field Marshal Haig got intel that the krauts were up to something. Some new kind of weapon. Something that might change the course of the war. We’re supposed to infiltrate a location in southern Germany, try to get intel on this weapon. Destroy it, even, if the opportunity presents itself.” He pulled on the last of the cigarette, then let the butt fall on the floor, crushing it before it could roll away. “We’re going by transport to Verdun, but from there we have to go by foot across the enemy lines into Germany and on to our destination.”

Veth scoffed. “Across enemy lines? Are you joking?”

“Unfortunately not,” he sighed. “That would be the suicide part.”

Yasha raised her hand. “Exactly where in Germany are we going?”

“I’ll admit I don’t know,” the captain replied and nodded to Caleb. “Lance-corporal Widogast here is the one that knows where we’re going.”

The man looked uncomfortable with the attention now placed on him. “Yes. I have, uh, intel. I’ll lead you there. I’ll fill you in more when we get to Verdun.” He leaned back and picked up a book from inside his uniform, flipping it open and reading some hand-written notation. It was apparent that he wouldn’t offer any more information, and the captain, to Beau’s surprise, didn’t press the matter. Another interesting fact.

The others all relaxed as best they could in this brief respite. Veth made herself comfortable in Caleb’s lap and seemed to be fast asleep within moments. Beau leaned back against the canvas and tried to do the same. The lorry rattled on along pitted roads, jostling its occupants and cargo. Despite less than comfortable surroundings most of the group fell asleep quickly, a skill honed by months in the trenches where sleep came infrequently and never comfortably. The only ones awake were the scruffy lance-corporal, who was deeply engrossed in his book, and Beau, who was too wound up to sleep.

After a couple of hours, they transferred to the train along with more cargo and other soldiers on their way to the front. Beau was trying to find the most comfortable position on top of her gear as she saw a nightingale fly in and perch somewhere up in the ceiling. She stared at it, then turned the stare at the lance-corporal. He gave her an embarrassed shrug and went back to his book. She frowned and laid back.

_Weird people. Weird mission. Why me? Why them? Brenatto I get, and the Russian, if she can fight as well as she says. A medic is good to have, but her? She seems to have no battle experience. What the hell are we doing with a chaplain? And Widogast? He looks like he would snap in a stiff breeze. And that captain… there’s something fishy there. He’s lying about something; I just have to figure out what…_

Without noticing, she slipped into sleep.

_Shells again, always shells, falling from the sky. Over the top again, into no man’s land, stumbling, falling. Her nose in the cobbles of her hometown, the kids laughing. Jumping up, punching, fighting – one, two of them, stock-still and frozen in their tracks. Stones thrown at her, caught one-handed and thrown back. Her father’s hand on her neck, his voice, screaming in her face. You freak. Get out of my house! His screaming form, morphing into the form of the major, laughing at her and saluting her with the wine, his wine. Her anger and frustration boiling over, her hand raised, crackling with force-_

The train passed a point, and she jolted awake, then turned over and fell asleep again. This time, she didn’t dream, and slept until the train stopped in Bar-le-Duc.


	2. Verdun

Bleary-eyed soldiers filed off the train in Bar-le-Duc, carrying gear and worried expressions, and waited in little groups to be assigned their positions and shipped off to the front lines. The seven of them followed suit, stretching and rubbing sleep from their eyes. As they waited by the side of the train, a nightingale fluttered down and landed by Caleb’s feet. It bobbed and chirped, then hopped up and sat on his boot. He flushed and bent down to pick it up, and it hopped onto his finger like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Beau stared at it. “Hey, is that the one that’s been following us?”

“Um… yes,” he said with an embarrassed shrug and held a protective hand above the bird. “I, uh, I’ve been feeding it.” He shot a glance to Veth, who frowned. “I, uh, I found it with a wounded wing. It’s been keeping close since.”

“Smart bird.”

“Yeah.”

He gently petted the nightingale with a finger, smoothing its wing, until it chirped again and took off. Veth grabbed his sleeve and pulled him down to whisper in his ear. He mumbled back at her, shaking his head. Beau looked after the bird, but it was already gone.

Fjord took some documents from inside his uniform and waved them at the group. “Alright, gang. We’re meeting a with a major…” He looked at the paper. “Wenceforth, apparently.” He nodded towards a ramshackle, but standing building. “Over there.”

After a brief conversation with the guards, they were escorted into the headquarters. Major Rufus Wenceforth proved to be an elderly man with sad, sunken eyes and week-old stubble, flanked by a young soldier. He acknowledged Fjord’s salute and read through the proffered documents in silence before he sat back and took his glasses off with a tired gesture.

“I see. Well, I can’t say anything else than godspeed, soldiers. This isn’t a task I’d wish any under my command to go through with.” He tapped a telegram on the desk. “The wire came through early yesterday. I’ve been instructed with providing you with updated maps of the area between here and Metz, as well as we can ascertain it. I’ve also obtained a general map of southern Germany that should prove useful. To have a fighting chance to blend in, you’ll be outfitted with German uniforms. I understand that one of you speaks the language?”

The lance-corporal nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Beau hesitated slightly, then added: “Me too, sir.” Caleb gave her a curiously suspicious glance.

“Oh, two of you? Good, good. Let’s hope it won’t be needed, eh? Well, here are your maps.” The major stood up and lit a cigarette as Fjord accepted the roll of paper from the batswoman. “Have you got everything else you need?”

Veth held up a hand. “I’d not say no to a couple more rounds, sir. Didn’t have time to stack up before we left the Somme.”

The major nodded. “Of course. Good forward thinking, that woman. Anything else?”

“Could I request a few things from the food stores, sir?” Caduceus said. “I’m running low on spices.”

The major chuckled and tapped the ashes into an ashtray. “Spices you say? Certainly, what little there is. Barret?”

The batswoman stood up straight. “Sir?”

“Make sure they are outfitted with whatever they need, hear?”

“Yes, sir.” She made a quick note on a piece of paper and handed it for him to sign. The major handed the requisition to Fjord.

“Well then. We leave tonight.”

“We, sir?” Fjord asked.

The major gave a fleeting smile. “Yes, I’ll be the commanding officer for the decoy mission. I’ve coordinated a raiding party with the nearby trenches – you’ll accompany them over the contested territory and veer off as soon as you enter the defending line. After that, you’ll be on your own. Hopefully the uniforms and lingo will give you all the time you need.”

“A couple seconds is all I need, major,” Veth retorted and patted the knife in her belt.

The major nodded. “No doubt, private Brenatto. Give the Germans what for from us, eh?” He put the stub of the cigarette out and sat down by his desk again. “As you were, captain.”

Fjord ripped off a salute. The young batswoman smiled and led them out and in the direction of the supply tents. Generously enough, the requisition stated that all requests were to be fulfilled, so they had the full run of the place. Veth dived right for the ammunition stores, unwrapping her long oilcloth bundle to reveal a rifle: a standard issue Lee-Enfield Mk III, but with a very complicated scope and a heavily decorated butt.

Beau whistled. “What is _that?_ That’s beautiful!”

“It’s my own design,” Veth said with obvious pride. “I got my hands on one of the German rifles a couple of months ago, and I’ve been building on its idea. Tinkering’s a hobby of mine.” She grabbed a handful of bullet packs and started to rearrange her rucksack to fit them.

Most of the group took the opportunity to exchange old, mouldering blankets and bedrolls for new ones, and to stock up on socks and underwear. Jester went through her med kit and filled up her aspirin and opium bottles. The batswoman, Barrett, showed them a stack of captured German uniforms. Most of it fit more or less well, except for on the chaplain, who had to be wrapped up in a pair of too-short trousers and a coat on top of his own uniform. He took it with the same calm as everything else and started to look for food. Beau watched him coo over some glass jars, and went over to look.

“Found your spices?”

He nodded and measured out portions of the spices in his own packets and re-tied them. The mingled smells made Beau’s nose itch.

“What’s the point, though? I’d rather have space for something else,” she said and stifled a sneeze.

He looked surprised. “Well, just because were in a bad situation doesn’t mean we have to eat bad, do we? Besides, it’s much more fun to cook something that actually tastes good. Best way of surviving on what nature gives you.”

“Didn’t know you could cook.”

“You didn’t ask,” he replied calmly.

Embarrassed, she went over to another stack to root around. Something fell over with a clang and opened up, spilling some black, strong-smelling flakes on the ground. She put the lid on again and shook it at the chaplain.

“There’s a tin of baccy here, Clay. You need some?”

He smiled. “Thanks, that’s very kind of you. But I smoke my own blend.” He patted his inside pocket. “I can make more as we go, if I run out.”

“What do you make that stuff outta? Bark and leaves?”

He nodded. “Yes. Oh, and mushrooms.”

“Uh, right.” Beau put the tobacco tin away and went to make sure her rifle was in good condition. She’d never become comfortable with shooting it, mainly relying on the bayonet or using it as a club, but she kept it in good condition nonetheless.

After restocking, repacking and kitting up in German uniforms, Barrett left them to attend the major for dinner. They were left to their own devices for an hour or so. They found an unoccupied patch of ground and settled down in a rough circle. Fjord spread his coat out on the ground in the middle and looked at the lance-corporal.

“This may be a good time to go over where we’re going?”

“Yes, right.” Caleb looked around to make sure there weren’t any others within direct earshot.

Fjord rolled out the first map on top of the coat and weighed it down with stones. “From here to the border it’s roughly 30 km.” He pointed at the dotted line. “First, we have the no man’s land, then fortifications, supply lines – all the same things as on our side. That’ll be the worst part, getting through all that alive. We’ll have to be very, very careful. Then there’s quite a bit of patrolled but abandoned old battleground – if we manage to pass it in the night it should be hard but not impossible. As soon as we’re inside Germany and away from the front, it’s another kind of challenge – we’ll have to sneak and bluff our way through the countryside.” He pulled out the second, larger map and put it on top of the other. “This map is of southern Germany. Where is it we’re heading, lance-corporal?”

Caleb took out the notebook and consulted it. “Here,” he said and tapped at the map. “There’s a facility just outside a small town called Tiefenstein, in the Birkenfeld principality. From the look of it, it’s a bit over a 100 km from Metz, but we’ll try to avoid any large towns. At full speed, it would take us about three days to walk, but since we’ll have to go slowly and mostly by night, I should say a week or more.”

Yasha studied the map. “Hm. How’s the terrain?”

“Mixed. Farmland, forests, hills and mountains.”

“We should be able to hide most of the time, then?” Jester bit at her thumbnail distractedly. “And you two can talk to people we meet?”

Beau looked at Caleb and shrugged. “I can back you up, but I don’t know shit from diamonds about what I should say to keep them from being suspicious.”

Jester looked up. “Would it help if we had papers of some kind?”

“Oh, definitely,” Caleb said. “But it’s been hard to get those kinds of things with this climate.” He made a vague gesture that encompassed the whole wretched situation they were in.

“I’m very good at writing things that look official… if you help me with the language? And tell me what kinds of seals and stuff should be on it?”

Caleb looked surprised at her. “Yes, that would be very helpful.”

Veth leaned forwards on her elbows. “I’m good at that too – want me to help you out?”

Jester beamed. “Yes, that’d be great!” She rummaged around in her pack and pulled out a long wooden box, which turned out to hold paints, inks and a variety of drawing and writing implements. “What kind of paper would you think they’d use?”

As the three of them started to forge documents for the group, Caduceus wandered off in search for some food. Someone had set up a soup canteen, and the chaplain gravitated towards it, chatting with the soldiers and adding from his own provisions to the pot. Soon, he came back with bowls of thick stew. The group ate as they chatted and threw out suggestions for the papers or the route they’d be taking. Beau felt herself relaxing in a way she hadn’t done since she was young and stupid and a part of that gang back home. That grace period right before a hit, when everything seemed simple and clear-cut and there was no way anything would go to hell, that was the best part. It was so easy to ignore the bad things, then.

When the chaplain was done, he wiped his bowl and put it away, then took out a small incense burner and put it on the ground. A few sticks of incense were lit from the fire, and the pleasant smell of smouldering sandalwood mingled with the remains of the meal. He smiled at the group as he set up a little altar.

“Would you all like to pray with me before we head out?”

Beau shrugged. “I guess. Not really my thing, but sure.” She sat down beside the chaplain. “Like this, right? Haven’t done this since I was a kid.”

“Any way you like.” Caduceus turned to the others. “And you?”

“Um… no thank you,” Caleb said, awkwardly. “I’ll watch, if you don’t mind.” He turned back to the map. Veth was deeply engrossed in the forgery and didn’t look up.

The captain smoothed his hair down and nodded. “I’ll join, if that’s fine.” He sat down beside Beau.

Yasha sat down as well and smiled shyly. “I don’t know much about this goddess you have... You do this in a group? I’ve never prayed like that before.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Caduceus said. “You wouldn’t have. You’d be a follower of the Lord of Storms, wouldn’t you? You pray alone, as I recall.”

“Yes, but… I don’t think that’s very popular here.” She looked around. “I mean… some of you think he’s evil.”

The chaplain waved his hand irritably. “That’s a gross misreading of the codices. I’m very sad that that’s become an issue at all.” He turned to the medic. “How about you?”

Jester looked away and smiled nervously. “Um… I’m not a follower of the Mother, technically. I sort of have my own god.” She pulled out a little painted symbol hung on a chain around her neck. “Have you heard of the Traveller? He talks to me. He’s my god.”

Beau looked at the symbol. It looked like a door or an archway, with something coming out of it – a road, maybe. It was beautifully made, and she wondered if Jester had made it herself.

Fjord looked unsure. “Err. That’s blasphemy. Isn’t that blasphemy, padre? The deities don’t… actually talk to people, do they?”

Jester frowned. “He talks to _me_. And it’s not blasphemy because he doesn’t have anything to do with the All-Mother, actually!”

“Yes, sure, all right…” The captain put his hands up. Beau sniggered.

The chaplain shrugged. “I don’t know. I never really bothered with that whole thing, you know. Belief is belief. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Somebody cleared their throat behind the chaplain. Jester quickly put her little symbol back inside her shirt. A group of soldiers led by a short lieutenant had gathered, led by the smell of the incense. The lieutenant took off their helmet and gestured towards the little altar Caduceus had been setting up.

“May we join, padre?”

The chaplain’s face lit up. “Of course.”

He made space for the group. The lieutenant smiled and sat down, and more soldiers joined until there was a small crowd gathered. Caduceus stood up and looked at the tiny impromptu congregation.

“All-Mother, keeper of the root and the vine, the blossom and the fruit; All-Mother, shepherdess of the beasts on land and in the sea, in the air and in the earth; All-Mother, steward of the quickening and the rot, of the start and end of all that lives. See these soldiers and grant them solace. Let them rest among the roots of your trees; let them sleep soundly in the boughs. Grant them your blessing, that when they return to the earth that made them, they will rest there eternally and be free from resurrection.”

It had been years and years since she went to the temple, but she recognised that this ritual differed in many ways from the ones she grew up with. It was much more down to earth, for one. The prayer was old, almost archaic, made so much more fitting by the reality of the war. Give us relief, give us rest, give us an end to all this pain. Beau looked at the gathered soldiers as the chaplain spoke. All of them, one by one, put a hand on the ground, most of them not noticing. The sermon was comforting, calming. The tension left her as she listened to his voice… and she realised she could feel it. It was like a gentle current of warm air emanating from the chaplain, borne on his words. She sat up and stared at him. He looked back at her and smiled.

 _What the hell?_ She looked around the others, and nobody seemed to notice that something was weird. No… Jester, Fjord and Yasha were also staring at him, while Caleb and Veth seemed to make a point of not looking. _They all feel it._ _What the hell is going on?_ Then, the warm feeling subsided slowly, and the prayer was over. The gathered soldiers dispersed and went to collect their gear. Officers issued orders, and an organised chaos spread, funnelling the soldiers towards the front. No time to talk.

The journey to the front was short and boring, most of it spent planning. When they arrived, major Wenceforth led them to an unused stretch of trench and arranged his troops. When everything was prepared, he returned to the group and sat down beside Fjord.

“Well then. I wish you good luck.” The major shook the captain’s hand. “We’ll provide cover fire for you, and the rest of the raiding party will approach alongside until you’re in the German trenches, but as soon as you’re behind their lines you’re on your own.”

The soldiers around them looked at them with mingled admiration and pity. One of them doffed her hat at Beau; she replied with a half-smile and a nod. The major stood and took up his position. The only thing left now was the waiting.

Beau sat down close to Caduceus, leaned in and whispered: “Hey, padre. That prayer you said.”

He answered just as quietly. “Yes?”

“The Mother loves all her children, right?”

“Yes?” He looked at her now, a bit confused.

She took a handful of dirt from the ground. “If we fight for this dirt. For dead trees and a bombed-out stretch of land… what does she think about that?”

He looked down again. “What do you think? And what do you think I’m allowed to answer?” There was a note of bitterness to his voice.

“Then why are you here?”

He stared out into space a moment before answering. “Either these people die alone and afraid, for something they don’t believe in. Or I make sure that at least they don’t feel alone.”

She hesitated, then pushed on. “Was that what you were doing?”

He turned to look at her. “If we survive this, we’ll talk about why you could feel what I was doing.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I promise.”

She debated for a second whether to question him further, then nodded. “Deal.”

The darkness fell in silence, that nervous, busy silence you always got before an assault. The captain smoothed his hair down and adjusted his helmet, looking pale but determined. Yasha had the same stoic expression as she’d worn so far as she looked up to the sky, studying the dark clouds that drifted past. Jester fiddled nervously with the little archway she had tucked inside her shirt. Veth was talking fast and quiet with the lance-corporal, who looked like he was going to throw up any minute. Caduceus looked the calmest of them all, reciting a prayer under his breath.

Beau felt as sick as Caleb looked. It didn’t matter how many times she did this, it never got easier. She closed her eyes and leaned her head backwards towards the wall of the trench. She could smell the earth, the stink of gunpowder and the nervous sweat of hundreds of soldiers.

_If there is something out there… let me survive this. At least so I can understand what’s going on._

“Make ready.” The major’s voice was low, the command transferred down the line in both directions.

Beau place herself at the base of one of the ladders and leaned her forehead against it. Her stomach was roiling. But somehow, she was a little bit less nervous than she’d been the other times. She looked up and met Caduceus’ eyes. He smiled and winked at her.

“Now!”

No more time to think. **  
**


	3. Over the top

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made some small textual edits to the previous chapters, mainly to get the distances right. Other than that, let's get into some of the gritty.

The machine guns started blazing overhead. Beau hauled herself up the rickety ladder and under the barbed wire, row after row of it, twisted and askew. She could see the captain on her left, giving a hands-up to another soldier – still ashy pale but doing his best to help. They crouched and crawled, head down, trying to keep as flat as possible to avoid the gunfire, both friendly and hostile. The mud was cold between her fingers, grainy and sticky and mixed up with stones and shrapnel and jagged pieces of bone. The ground was pitted and treacherous; here and there were deep pits, full of water, inky black in the twilight. She stumbled forward trying to avoid the reeking puddles, but within minutes her feet were wet and mud-spattered.

Between the bursts of fire, she could hear a faint but constant muttering from the pair on her right – the lance-corporal and the sniper. When she cast a glance over at them, she could see that they were holding hands; Veth leading Caleb as he stumbled forward, eyes tightly shut. She shook her head and crawled onwards. Whatever he was going through, at least he had someone to hold on to. On her left, a soldier fell, her stomach pierced by bullets, her screams lost in the din. Beau shuddered and kept going, fighting the rising gorge in her throat. She needed to keep going forward or fall, you couldn’t look back or to the sides anymore; if you lost momentum, you died.

The going was slow. The distance was less than 200 metres, but it felt like so much more. You had to circle the dark pits, walk slowly, eyes cast down to avoid the unexploded mortars and mines strewn about like so many discarded toys. Lost in concentration, she heard the whistling overhead too late to react. The shockwave caught her and turned her upside down like a leaf in the wind, knocking her shoulder against the ground and showering her in mud. She sat up, confused and directionless, all sounds muffled, until a face swam into focus in front of hers. Pale, with a black stripe down her chin. Beau shook her head and tried to stand up, failing and wobbling until Yasha hauled her to her feet. Her shoulder burned like fire and she had to grit her teeth to keep from screaming. They half-ran, half-crouched forwards, the tall Russian carrying most of her weight.

They stopped halfway behind the ruined stone wall of what had once been a barn, miraculously still standing. Jester and Fjord climbed in behind them. Yasha lowered Beau down as carefully as possible, but she couldn’t keep from wincing.

“You hurt?”

“Yeah. My shoulder…”

Yasha leaned forward. “Let me see.” She opened Beau’s uniform and ran her hand over her shoulder with callused fingers. If it hadn’t been for the pain and the panic, Beau would have relished the touch. Yasha pushed gently on the joint, and Beau gritted her teeth with pain.

“It’s dislocated.” She turned to Jester. “What should I do?”

“Here.” Jester sat down on Beau’s other side. “You hold her hand, extend the arm, like that. Good. Keep it stretched, hard. Hold the elbow.” Jester put her hands on the side of Beau’s shoulder. “When I say now, you twist to the left, alright?”

Yasha nodded.

Jester turned to Beau. “It’s gonna hurt, and also, you should probably be resting, you know, not move the arm for at least two weeks. Drink a lot of water and, above all, no stress.” She nodded encouragingly.

Beau and Yasha just stared at her as an artillery shell exploded close by.

“Now!” Jester grinned and pushed at the front of Beau’s shoulder as Yasha twisted. Beau barely had time to react before the joint popped back into place with a disgusting sound and a sharp pain.

“Aaaargh, oh, motherfucker!” She smacked her good hand into the wall, tears welling up.

Jester gently patted her knee. “Sorry, but I did say.”

“No, no, it’s good. Thanks.” Beau breathed heavily and fumbled for her water-bottle. “I can do one of the things you said, anyway.”

One by one, the others filed in and collapsed against the ruined walls as they took short draughts of their water-bottles and wiped mud from their faces. Caleb and Veth were the last of their group. The lance-corporal fell to his knees and vomited quietly in a corner.

The captain leaned in towards Veth and nodded towards him. “How’re you two doing?

“We’re alive.” She shot a glance at her companion. “I’m getting him though this, don’t worry.”

“Good. We need you two.” He took another swig of water.

As the barrage let up for a second, Beau could hear the brilliant tones of a nightingale, far above them. She wondered if it was the same one that had been following them. _Poor thing. It’s probably gonna get shot down. All because he fed it._ She drained her bottle and hung it back at her side.

Fjord adjusted his helmet. “All right. Last leg, team.” He gestured to the major, who nodded and relayed the command down the line. Last approach. Do or die.

They crouched down and left the relative safety of the ruined barn. There was less mortar fire here, closer to the German line, but the machine gun fire didn’t let up. It was crawling from here on out. Beau tried to ignore her aching shoulder as she slithered forward on her elbows. She could see the barbed wire, double, triple lines of it, parts torn away and patched up again. Her hand caught on a rusted loop of it, buried in the mud, and she swore. When she looked up again, she was looking straight into the muzzle of a rifle. She froze. The rifle flashed…

And time slowed down.

The bullet was coming at her, like moving through treacle. She moved her hand to intercept it, forcing it through air that was suddenly thick and resistant. When she grasped it, it was hot enough to burn her fingers. She thrust it to the side, throwing it away…

And time sped up again, and Fjord was staring at her.

“That’s… quite a talent, private.” He was laying on his side, revolver in hand, panting. She stared back at him. Another bullet zipped past, only centimetres from her face, and she threw herself down beside him.

“Later!” He nodded. Both of them stood up and ran at the trench, screaming.

Other soldiers followed suit, several of them mowed down instantly by the machine guns. Beau raised her rifle and fired, hitting something or someone, she didn’t have time to look or think. Everything became automatic: fire, reload, fire, stab, reload; the smell of gunpowder and blood in her nose, the taste of death in her mouth. She jumped over the edge and down into the trench, side by side with Yasha. The Russian was screaming, her face screwed into a mask of pure rage – she didn’t even use her rifle but closed distance and stabbed with a long, wicked knife instead. Beau could see the rest of the remaining Entente forces falling on the German soldiers like a wave. The major had his sidearm out, and a German soldier fell with a bullet in his chest – he aimed at another, only to have his revolver click. He stared at it with a surprised and almost disappointed look. Then, the side of his face exploded into red mist, and he fell backwards. The soldier who held the rifle that dispatched the major fell the next second, throat shot out by the captain.

Yasha kept slicing through the enemy like a farmer reaping wheat, and Beau followed her, frantically reloading her rifle. Where three trenches met and merged there was a machine gun station – one gunner and two backups. When they heard the commotion, they let go of the bandoliers of ammunition and scrambled to raise their rifles, but didn’t have time to shoot before Yasha charged them. Beau could swear that the Russian’s eyes were red in the darkness as she bounded through the mud, knife raised. She crashed into the station and knocked them ass over teakettle. One of them fell, clutching his stomach and wailing softly; the other fled only to be shot down by a French soldier. The gunner managed to get a revolver out before Yasha slashed his throat open. He fell to the side, sliding down the bank, coughing and clutching his neck as she hefted the machine gun over one shoulder and grabbed the bandoliers, throwing them over the other.

Beau scoffed. “You’re not seriously going to-“

Yasha snarled at her. “This is _mine_ now!”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say, let’s get the bloody hell out of here already!” She looked around for the others. “Come on, this way!”

Beau and Yasha soon got lost in the chaos of the maze-like trenches. They turned a corner and took a run into a side-trench, and the immediate surroundings grew quiet. Adrenaline surging through her veins, Beau collapsed, shaking, against the rotten boards and breathed for a second. When she stopped concentrating on surviving, she felt the throbbing ache in her shoulder again. Then, a hand grabbed hers. She almost screamed before she saw a face in the gloom – a shaky smile and two bright eyes.

“Keep close to me,” Jester whispered. “There’s… a good place to sneak away. There, see?” She pointed. “I’ve told the others.”

It was an empty stretch of trench that led away from the abandoned cul-de-sac, little more than a human-height groove in the ground. Jester ran away again and returned with the rest of the group. Fjord and Veth were both spattered with blood; Caduceus had a grim, determined look, and Caleb was ashy grey and wide-eyed. The captain made a quick roll-call, and the group sneaked onwards, keeping close together. They could hear the bombardment, the ground shaking mere metres away.

After following the trench for a while, they climbed over the edge and started to go across open ground. It was a true wasteland, left behind when the front progressed, filled with old abandoned trenches, barbed wire and skeletons of long-dead trees. They kept low, avoiding the roughest terrain. Troops were passing them toward the fighting, and suddenly, they realised that they’d been caught between several groups – one of which was approaching their location quickly.

The medic looked around in panic. “We need to take cover!”

“Where?” Veth hissed. “There’s nowhere!”

Jester pointed, wide-eyed, just meters ahead of them. “In here! Lay down. No talking.”

There was a depression in the ground more regular than the roundish holes left by the mortars – the exposed cellar of a long-gone building. Jester ushered them all inside and made them creep into what few nooks and crannies could be found. When everybody was relatively hidden, she squeezed herself in beside Beau. Beau was about to whisper when she heard the sounds of footfalls.

<Check it, Hinkelmann.>

<Yes, lieutenant!>

A fair-haired young man, barely out of his teens, stepped down the cracked stone steps. He gave the cellar a cursory sweep. As he walked close to her hiding place, Beau gripped the rifle harder in preparation. The soldier leaned in and gave the alcove a look-over. Beau could swear that he was looking straight at her… then he turned away. She could hear his footsteps clacking as he went back up to his troop.

<It’s clear, lieutenant.>

<Good. Let’s proceed.>

The patrol moved on. Beau allowed herself to relax with a slow exhale. When she turned to look at Jester, the little medic was sweating, eyes screwed so tightly shut that her nose was all scrunched up. Beau hugged her shoulders and whispered in her ear.

“Hey. Hey, they’re gone. Were you scared?”

Jester wiped her brow. “No, it’s… I wasn’t scared. Don’t worry about it.”

Veth stood up and helped Caleb up. “Shit, that was too close. Bit of luck, eh?”

“Yeah. Lucky.” Beau glanced over at Jester. _Did she do that? It wasn’t luck, not something that close. He should have seen us, there was no way he didn’t._

They cautiously left the ruined cellar and kept on, even more cautious now; as soon as they saw a troop or patrol they laid low, barely moving until the coast was clear. Fjord and Caleb held them on the right course, and after a while they started to see tents and supply piles as well as more people. Moving slowly, they managed to sneak in, avoiding the random groups of soldiers and the wandering sentries. There were several times when Beau could swear that they should have been sighted, but the sentries glossed over them, almost as if they blended in with the background. Jester was growing tired, stumbling once; she would have fallen, had the captain not been quick enough to catch her.

“You alright?” He righted her and kept her steady by a hand under the elbow. “Not getting sick, are you?”

“No, no. It’s just… you get tired, yeah?” The medic brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I could use a bit of sleep.” She smiled at the group, but there was no humour in it.

<Hey! You! What are you doing here?>

A young officer had turned the corner of a tent and stood staring at them, hand on his sidearm. Beau swore to herself – they’d only lost focus for a second, and now there was going to be a fight. She inched her hand closer to the trigger of her rifle and started to move, very slowly, to flank the German officer. She saw Veth start to do the same when Fjord let go of Jester and stepped forward.

“Hey, shhhh, it’s alright. We’re German soldiers, just like you.”

Beau stopped in her tracks and gaped at Fjord. The officer stared at him as well, too nonplussed with his action to raise the alarm. Then he frowned and rallied.

<You’re not German!> He pulled out his revolver and pointed it at Fjord. Caleb was translating under his breath, muttering rapidly for the benefit of the others.

Fjord took another step forward and smiled. “But I am, my friend. I’m speaking German. Of course I am. It would be silly if I weren’t, don’t you think? It’s so much more logical that I am, friend, don’t you agree?”

There was a glint in his eyes, and his smile was suddenly so calm, so immensely sincere that everything took on a sheen of perfect clarity. Of course he was right. Everything was alright. Beau could feel the calm, absolute assurance radiating from him like a warm wave. And then she shook her head. No, he wasn’t speaking German. _What the hell was that?_ But the officer was looking at Fjord now like he was speaking the absolute truth, and it was the most soothing thing he had ever heard. His hand lowered slowly, the revolver forgotten.

<Yeah… of course you are.> He reached out and patted the front of Fjord’s coat absently. <It’s alright.>

Fjord took his hand and shook it with another brilliant smile. “You’re just a bit tired, friend. Just go away and rest a bit, right? You deserve it. We’ll handle everything.”

<Yes… that’s such a good idea.> The officer smiled at the captain, then nodded to the group and wandered off.

Veth turned to the captain and stared at him. “What the absolute fuck?”

Fjord looked flustered. “Language, private. Let’s continue.”

“But you...”

“No time!”

Veth muttered but followed orders.

Beau followed the group, lost in thought. _How in blazes did he do that? And I’m sure Jester did something to those sentries so they couldn’t see us. Is that why they were chosen? Is that… why I was chosen? Does somebody know? Fjord saw me catch that bullet. But he was surprised by it. He doesn’t know. But somebody does, and I’m gonna godsdamn well find out._

They managed to avoid all further incident until they came to the last line of tents. The only spot to get though unnoticed was between two supply piles, occupied by a single sentry who stood facing outwards, one leg up on a bench, smoking a cigarette. The group crouched down in the shadow of a tent.

“We have to get between there,” Caleb whispered and pointed at the opening. He looked to Veth and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

The sniper nodded and put a finger to her lips. She gestured to the others to keep back, then squared her shoulders and walked up to the sentry. She put one hand on his shoulder, like she was going to ask him a question. As he started to turn, her other hand moved like blur towards the centre of his chest. The soldier made a little sound – a soft gasp, then nothing more. He folded inward, and she caught him and sat him down slowly on the bench. She arranged him like he was resting against the stretched canvas, then waved at the others to approach. As they passed the sentry, Beau could see a black stain spreading on the front of his crumpled jacket.

The territory beyond the supply lines was much less of a wasteland but still bore marks of battle. They moved over open ground, avoiding the few pitted supply roads. Beau could see troops moving and gunfire echoing over the landscape. _They’ve come to far,_ she thought. _The diversion worked too well, they’ve broken in behind the lines…_ They stopped in a little valley so that Caleb and Fjord could roll out the maps and make a few measurements.

“We need to get over this part before we come into the forest.” Fjord pointed to a black mass on the map. “We’ll have good cover there, we can move unhindered the last bit to the border, but this is the last dangerous stretch. There will be patrols and fighting.”

Veth nodded. “If we spread out we’re not such a big target, right?” She looked through the scope, then pointed. “Look over there. That hill with the oak on top? Just where the forest gets really dense? We’ll meet there.”

Beau stared at the distant tree. “It’s too dangerous,” she said and shook her head. “There’s a lot of movement down there. In these uniforms… it’s too risky.”

Veth shook her head. “Nah. You lot get down there and crawl. I’ll cover for you. Don’t worry, I’m really sneaky.” She squeezed Caleb’s hand. “I’ll meet you there, alright?”

He made a grimace but squeezed her hand back. She ran off, short, stout body crouching, the rifle held secure close to her chest. The others broke off in small groups and moved towards the distant tree – Fjord and Jester in one direction, Caduceus and Yasha in the other. Beau waited impatiently as Caleb rolled up their maps and stuffed them in his pack.

They both heard the high-pitched whistling, and they both knew what it meant. It meant to get to cover, get in the trenches, hold your head down and don’t look up, because when it hits you’re either dead or you’ll wish you were. But there was no cover here, no relatively safe trenches, there was only the empty, pitted, muddy stretch of land that was going to be as close to one of the nine hells that anything on Earth could be in just a few seconds. It didn’t matter if it was one of theirs or one of yours, the result was the same. Beau stared at the tree. It was only a couple hundred meters away, but it might as well be on the moon. Then she threw herself to the ground and covered her head with her arms. The shell fell close by, showering them with mud and gravel. Caleb just stood there, staring forward. Beau looked up at him, then got up and shook him.

“We need to go! Caleb, we gotta run!” There was no response. “Shit, I knew there was something wrong with you. You need her to do this, don’t you?”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him along, ignoring the stab of pain from her shoulder. She could hear him muttering faintly under his breath as they stumbled forward, zig-zagging to make themselves less of a target. The fighting was picking up, and she could hear the sounds of rifles firing and shouting in the distance. The whistling of mortar fire came closer. She held her head down and tugged on Caleb’s hand, guiding him as best she could to keep him from falling. Everything went automatic again – one foot in front of the other, run, just run, just run. Finally, they reached the hill.

The rendezvous point didn’t exist anymore. A wayward artillery shell had obliterated it, splintering the hundred-year old oak into charred fragments and pitted the little hill until it looked like a thousand rabbits had dug into it. Just one of those things that happen when someone miscalculates the angle or strength of a mortar. The group met up, panting, chests aching. Beau and Caleb came last.

Yasha wiped the sweat from her face and looked around. “Where… where is…?”

The group looked around in the dark. Finally, they found her. Veth lay some ways away, still, face down, thrown far by the explosion. With a gasp, Caleb ripped his hand from Beau’s and stumbled forwards, falling to his knees beside the corpse. She could hear him whispering, voice broken and hopeless.

“No, no, no, no…” He touched her hand. <Goddess above, no, no, please…>

The others came up to them. Jester kneeled on the other side of Veth and turned her over. She felt for a pulse, then sighed and shook her head. Caleb started sobbing.

Beau gritted her teeth. “Shit.”

Caduceus laid his hand on Yasha’s arm. “We can’t stay here. Can you carry her?”

Without a word, the huge woman wrapped her coat around Veth, picked her up and cradled her gently in her arms. Beau looked around until she found the pack and the ornate rifle, and hoisted them up on her chest. Caduceus put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder.

“Where to, Caleb?” When he didn’t get an answer, the chaplain turned to Fjord. “You have the map; which way?”

The captain rolled the mud-spattered map on the ground, put the compass on top and made a few calculations.

“There,” he said, and pointed. “North-east.”

Beau went up to Caleb and shook him. “Caleb. We gotta go.”

The lance-corporal was just sitting there, staring at the ground without a word. She sighed and pulled him to his feet.

“Hey. Come on, Widogast. Come on, one foot in front of the other.” Slowly, he began to stumble forward, following the rest of the group.

The captain leaned in towards her and whispered. “What’s wrong with him? Why’s he not saying anything?”

She frowned. “You don’t- What? How long have you been in the army, cap?”

“Eh… I, um. Just…. Two weeks.” The captain had the decency to look embarrassed.

 _I was right_ , she thought. “Right. Well. He’s shell-shocked. Heard about that?”

Fjord scratched the back of his head and looked sheepish. “Well, I-“

She sighed. “It happens sometimes. Not that a base rat like you’d know. All the fighting… the bombs falling all the time, people dying. People just go… funny in the head. Just let me do it, alright?”

They walked for a while. The forest grew thick, masking the sounds of fighting until they disappeared altogether. The darkness was soft and velvety, the air crisp and clear. The clouds had opened a little to let through soft starlight. They followed a deer path until they came to a little lean-to formed by two boulders leaned against each other. Fallen trees and branches had accentuated it until a small cave had formed. Beau sat Caleb down on the ground and made sure he was comfortable. She didn’t know what else could be done – had they been in the trench, she’d have brought him a mug of tea. She looked around and put the packs down. The silence was complete except for the noise they made themselves. They might be able to set up a fire if they were careful.

Yasha had laid Veth on the ground, still wrapped in her coat. Beau crouched down beside her and moved a strand of hair out of her face. She’d gone over the top several times and survived mainly by being a sneaky bastard. She’d made it, but she’d seen this shit too many times. People with limbs blown off, faces ruined, bits and pieces of them littered here and there. Veth didn’t look too bad, comparably, since the blast had hit her from behind. But the back of her was a torn and ruined mess, and Beau could see shards of white poking out. She shuddered and tried to arrange the little sniper comfortably, as if it mattered anymore. Caduceus joined her, sitting down comfortably. The chaplain started singing something – a hymn, she realised. Suddenly, he leaned forward and started to unbutton Veth’s uniform. Beau frowned, reached across the sniper and grabbed his wrist.

“What are you doing with her?”

He stopped and smiled that infuriatingly calm smile. “It’s going to be fine. She’ll be fine. I promise.”

She hesitated. “Is it some sort of temple thing?”

“Something like that.” He gently pulled his hand from her grasp and drew a necklace from inside his uniform, a simple chain with a ring on it. A large, diamond ring. He opened the clasp on the necklace and slid the ring off. As Beau watched, he finished opening Veth’s uniform and laid the ring on her chest.

“What-“

“Shhhh.” Caduceus laid his hand on top of hers and looked at her. “Trust me. It’s nothing dangerous.”

She looked into his eyes and saw nothing but sincerity. She thought about the warm wave of calm that she’d felt back at the train station.

“… go on then.”

He smiled again and put his hands on the dead woman’s chest, drew a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Mother of the Earth, guardian of the land and the sea, avatar of the bloom and the decay. I have favour to ask of you.” He put one hand on Veth’s forehead. ”This woman’s work isn’t done yet. Please, return her to us. She’ll come home to you in due time, but right now, we need her.”

When he stopped speaking, there was silence. Beau was suddenly aware that the others, excepting the lance-corporal, had come up and were standing behind her. There was another sound, like the rustling of leaves. All round the prone sniper, vines were moving, crawling over her, covering her arms and legs like a blanket. One by one, the vines grew shoots, then leaves, then flowers, until she was covered on a multitude of brilliantly coloured blooms that stood in stark contrast against the brown earth. Beau stared, then looked up at Caduceus. He just kept smiling, hands on Veth’s chest. Then, with a bright, high sound, the diamond broke and shattered into a fine dust. There were a few long seconds of silence.

Then Veth coughed.

“Caleb…”

Beau felt herself being pushed aside by more force she thought was possible from the scrawny lance-corporal. He fell to his knees by Veth’s side, his knees cracking painfully but unnoticed against the hard ground. Sobbing, he held her as she drew breath after painful breath.

Caduceus leaned forwards and pried them apart gently. “Let her breathe. It’s going to take a while for her to recover.”

Jester hurried over to lean down on the other side and started to check the sniper over, listening to her breathing and pulse. When she’d finished she stared in amazement at Veth.

“She’s… I mean, she’s not fine, not a by a longshot, but… she’s alive.”

Caleb squeezed Veth’s hand and looked at Caduceus, tears running down his cheeks and into his beard. “How…”

Caduceus took out his pipe and started to pack it. “You know how. Because you know how to do these things too.” Caduceus smile was calm but his gaze was straight and steady, boring into the lance-corporal.

Caleb froze like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming freight train. “No, I-“

“I know you can. I can see it in you,” the chaplain interrupted and lit the pipe.

Fjord took a step forward. “What do you mean, padre?”

“He knows,” Caduceus repeated and nodded at Caleb. “He can do it too.”

Yasha frowned and looked at the lance-corporal. “You can bring people back from the dead?”

Caleb looked around at them, mouth moving without any sound coming out, then looked at Veth, who smiled.

“Tell them.”

“I-“

“Tell them, Caleb.” She reached up to stroke his cheek.

Beau smacked her clenched fist into her palm. “Tell us what?! That you’re a bloody miracle worker too?”

Caleb drew a deep breath. “No… not that. But … other things.”

“What do you mean, other things?”

Caleb wiped the tears away. “Can we… look, can we have some tea first? And get out of this rain?”

Beau looked up. Unnoticed by everyone, the clouds had closed again and it had begun to drizzle. She shrugged.

“All right. Tea, then talk.”


	4. Tea and talk

They all moved into the little lean-to to get out of the increasing rain. Yasha quickly cleared out the back of it, unceremoniously but gently evicting a grumbling hedgehog in the process. Jester insisted on carrying it to a pile of leaves nearby so it could fall asleep again. Beau and Fjord cut more branches and gathered moss, then helped the tall woman build on the space between the stones until it looked like a pile of dead vegetation. They finished by weaving a rough lattice from thin branches and covered it with moss to work as a door. When they’d moved everybody’s packs and weapons inside (except for the machine gun, which Yasha concealed under a bush) there was just enough space for them all to sleep, albeit a bit uncomfortably.

Meanwhile, Caduceus set up a small Primus stove and got water boiling. When it was done, he took it off and added pinched of various herbs from his packets – Beau could recognise mint and regular tea leaves, but not the rest. After a minute, the brew was giving off a calming, rich smell. Each of them got a portion in a dented mug, which they drank in silence, seated inside the impromptu hut.

Fjord emptied the last dregs from his mug and looked at the lance-corporal. “All right, we’ve gotten something warm. Now tell us what this is all about.”

Caleb put his mug on the ground and took a deep breath. He held Veth against his chest, petting her hair slowly as he spoke, and she nestled close to him, shivering slightly in the early morning air.

“What I’m about to tell you will probably not come as a surprise, as such, not to you personally. Not if I’ve been correct so far.” He looked around at the group. “There are people… who carry this… seed. Inside them. A special seed. It gives them… powers.” He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “That’s not correct at all, but it’s a way of talking about it that you can understand. It manifests in different ways. The people I trained with… they called it Aspects. I’ve heard rumours of this type, but I’ve never seen it in person.” He nodded at Caduceus. “The healing Aspect. It’s, uh, it’s extremely rare. And I’ve never heard of somebody who could bring back the dead.”

“Is that what it’s called? Maybe. I don’t know.” Caduceus looked mildly confused as he sipped on his tea. “I just know that I can do this. So can my whole family. I can do some things by myself – healing, feeling when other use the powers… boosting or sapping strength in others. But sometimes I need help, like just then. The Mother helps me.”

Caleb shook his head. “Perhaps. I don’t know about that, where it comes from initially. There are many theories.” He tapped the mug pensively. “This thing… you’ve all heard the stories, right? The fairy tales of magicians and witches, of werewolves and dryads and… all of that? Some of that… it comes from people who had this seed. Who could raise the dead, command plants and animals, create things from nothing, who are stronger than most, faster. Miracle workers.” He looked down. “Or monsters who rain destruction on their enemies.”

He fell silent and stared at the dancing flame of the Primus until Beau nudged him with her foot.

“And you have it? What’s your… Aspect, then.”

He looked tiredly at her. “I told you already. I’m an explosions expert.” He sighed and snapped his fingers. A tiny flame sparked into life and danced on his palm. The others gasped.

“Specifically, I can manipulate forces and matter. Make it denser, thinner, move it around. Fire, ice, water, air…”

Veth put a shaky hand on his knee. “Knows his fire, my boy does.”

Caleb rubbed his forearm reflexively. “That. And some other things. This one I knew from an early age. Other things I learned. I can stop others from using their Aspects, sometimes. I can shield myself from harm, change things from one type of matter to another… the Aspects of Evocation and Transmutation, we called them.”

Fjord looked at the flame with longing in his eyes. “Can… anyone do that?”

“Possibly. We don’t know. The people I trained with… they tried to research just that.” Caleb closed his hand, extinguishing the little flame. “Certainly, if you have the seed, you can learn new things. It seems like if there is just the faintest of sparks, it can be fanned into a flame, and sometimes into a fire. But we don’t know if it can be… planted… in people.” He rubbed his arm again.

Jester bit her lip and looked around, then seemed to reach a decision. “Aspects… is that what they’re called?”

Caleb shrugged. “At least that’s what we called them. I guess any word is good.”

She gripped her mug, staring at it for a second, then looked up at him. “There’s a reason it’s us, isn’t there? Why it’s us on this mission?

Caleb met her eyes and then looked away. “Yes. Yes, there is.”

Beau sat up, spilling tea in her lap. “I knew there was something hinkey going on! Everybody’s been acting all weird – there’s something else about this mission, right?”

Caleb nodded.

Jester looked around at the group. “Then… the officers knew. About Clay. And about you?”

Caleb sighed. “Yes. Yes, they did know. I knew.”

“ _You_ knew?”

“Yes. I’ve been looking. It’s… my job. The explosive expert bit is just that. A bit. I do recognisance for the military, looking all over for people like us. For security. And… for other uses.” He looked around at the group. “You six are the strongest that aren’t already used in the war effort.”

Jester’s eyes opened wider. “Wait, _all_ of us?”

Beau pumped her fist in the air. “I bloody knew it!” She pointed at Caduceus. “I could feel it when you did the thing back at the train station – and the captain, and you too, Jester, right? You did something to the sentries!”

“Yes, all of us.” Caleb sighed. “It’s alright. You’ve all seen me, what I can do. And the padre. I didn’t plan for it to happen this way, but… here we are. We might as well put all the cards on the table.”

Beau suddenly felt much less enthusiastic, her elation over being right turning to panic when she realised where the conversation was heading. Everybody looked at each other until Jester threw her hands up.

“I just know that I’ve been able to do stuff since I was a kid! My mom said never to show people. She wanted me to stay indoors most of the time so people wouldn’t notice and get angry or something. But she thought it was so cool! She wanted me to do tricks all the time!”

Yasha moved a little closer to the medic and leaned in. “What can you do, then?”

Jester bit her lip. “Well…” She closed her eyes and concentrated, and another version of her popped into existence outside the shelter. She waved her hand, and the other Jester started to make faces at the group.

The Russian laughed. “That’s nice for when you’re feeling alone, I guess.”

Jester grinned and made the duplicate do a cartwheel. “It’s been really useful when, you know, you have to go out in the field and get someone who’s wounded and they’re shooting at you. They shoot at her instead! It doesn’t hurt or nothing! And also I can make people really like me, and forget things, and I can be extra sneaky when I want. So yeah, that patrol that passed right by us? You were right, that was me. I made them miss us. That was why I was concentrating so hard and getting so tired… It’s hard to hide this many people. Usually I just do me.” The smile faded a bit. “And… I can hurt people. If they’re mean to me.”

She waved her hand again, and the duplicate waved back and then vanished.

Fjord whistled quietly. “That. Is. Amazing. So… what can the rest of you do?”

Veth struggled to sit upright, and Caleb helped her until she could sit leaned against him. The sniper took a sip of the tea and patted her rifle.

“You’ve seen me. I’m a really fucking good shot. And no blighter can catch me, I’m way too sneaky, I can hide anywhere. Also, I make sure we never want for money.”

She wiggled her fingers, and a bluish outline formed around her hand. The outline detached, and floated in front on her, mimicking the movements of her hand exactly. Then, the hand floated over to Fjord’s backpack and started to undo the straps.

“Hey! You stop that this instant, private!” The hand froze, then flipped over and showed two fingers at the captain. He grumbled and redid the straps.

Veth grinned. “They don’t know I can do this. They assigned me as his bodyguard early on. He found out nearly immediately, and he helped me hide it from them. He never ratted me out, my Caleb.” She smiled up at the lance-corporal. “I’d been hiding this shit since I knew I could do it, since I was a kid. He taught me one or two of his own tricks, too. If you live long enough, I’ll show you some of ’em.” She looked around. “Who’s next?”

Nobody answered. Jester snuggled close to Beau and put a hand on her knee.

“Beauregard? What can you do?”

The bubbling panic in her stomach made Beau nauseous. “I… I don’t know if I want…” She trailed off, then started up again. “My family didn’t…” She could feel her throat tightening, cutting off her words.

Jester took Beau’s hand and squeezed it. “It’s okay. We’re not going to judge you.”

“Certainly not me,” Caleb added quietly.

Beau looked at him. _Monsters who rain destruction…_ She took a deep breath to steady her nerves.

“All right. When I fight… I can do things. Like… when I hit someone, I know what their innards look like, if they have any wounds or diseases. Where to hit them so it hurts. It just comes into my head somehow. I can… make them stop, like freeze, if I hit them just right. And I’m fast. You saw that.” She glanced at the captain. “When I caught that bullet?” He nodded. “I can fall off things and not get hurt…. I drank rat poison, once, when I was a baby. And I didn’t die. Also, I told you I wasn’t French. I am, though. I’m just… very, very good at languages. I can… I can speak them perfectly, after hearing them just once.”

Veth scoffed. “What, all of them?”

“Yeah.”

Yasha tilted her head. “ _Мой язык тоже?_ ”

_“Да и твое тоже.”_

Yasha smiled wistfully. “ _Это мило.”_

Beau shrugged uncomfortably. “Maybe it is. But my parents thought it was creepy. My father called me a freak. He- he carted me off here to get rid of me as soon as they got another kid. He paid them in wine to have me die at the front.”

She stopped to wipe away the angry tears she hadn’t realised were streaming down her cheeks. Jester threw her arms around Beau and held her tight. Beau froze at first, then hugged her back. Then she gently pushed the medic off and, sniffling, wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“So that’s my godsdamned sob story. Stop staring at me and fess up, one of you.”

Veth rooted around in her sleeve and produced a grubby handkerchief which she passed to Beau without comment. “Only the two of you left, then. Yasha?”

The Russian nodded slowly, like she had thought of something. “Caduceus. How long… how long after someone has died… can you bring them back?”

Caduceus looked at her and smiled sadly. “It has to be very soon after,” he replied. “Unfortunately.”

Yasha sighed. “I see.” She sat silent.

Fjord coughed. “If you want to save it, it’s all right, I mean. You don’t have to-“

Yasha held her hand up to stop him. “No, it’s fine.” She closed her eyes and concentrated. Then, a pair of skeletal wings with a few black, tattered feathers grew from her shoulders, pushing against the boulders and extending the full span of the hut and out through the opening. The others gasped.

“That is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Jester breathed. “Can I… can I touch them?”

“All right,” Yasha said shyly. Jester reached up and touched one of the feathers, then gently ran her hand along the blackened bones. Yasha shuddered lightly, like the touch was tickling her. Beau suddenly felt very jealous of the medic.

“I can’t do very special things,” Yasha said and watched Jester’s hand. “I’m just… I’m just a very good fighter. When I get angry. I just… never stop. No matter how hurt I get. It’s like I don’t feel it at all. And I heal very quickly. And I can use these.” She folded the wings in behind her. “Or. Well, I used to. I… I haven’t tried for a while. I used to be able to… help others in a fight, too. I haven’t done that in a while either.”

Yasha stopped and stared at the ground. There was an empty space behind her words, a sucking void as deep and dark as a crater left behind by mortar fire, and Beau wondered what had happened to her that could strip unearthly wings of their feathers. There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, then the rest of the group all looked at the captain. He put his hands up and looked back at them.

“Listen, I don’t have any of that. I mean, it sounds fantastic, but I don’t have it. Completely normal lad, me.”

“But... didn’t you say it was all of us?” Beau looked at Caleb.

Caleb shook his head. “I’ve seen many potential subjects. I don’t make mistakes. There is something there, something strong. You mean you’ve never manifested?

“What?” The captain looked confused.

“Shown some kind of power, I mean.”

“No! I mean… I almost drowned, when I was a kid. They said I drowned, anyway. They said I was dead for four minutes, then came back. But that’s, that’s just something that happens sometimes. That’s not… magic.” He looked away. “Not that I’d mind, you understand. It sounds… wonderful. Mostly wonderful.”

Caleb looked unconvinced. “I don’t know. The way you talked your way out of that altercation back at the German lines…”

Fjord rubbed the back of his necks sheepishly. “Well, I mean. That’s- that’s just charm, you know? I’ve always had that. I’m very good at bluffing.”

Veth scoffed. “Bluffing? No way, cap, you- he did what you wanted, even though you don’t even speak the language! He was eating out of your hand! That wasn’t just bluffing.”

“I was panicking, all right? I didn’t know what to do, it just felt like a good idea at the time!”

Caleb waved his hand. “Well, it might surface in time. Think about it, yes?”

“Well, sure, but I really do think you’ve made a mistake,” Fjord replied and sat back against the boulder.

The group fell silent again for a while. Beau felt the residual adrenaline from her confession leaving her body, leaving behind a light shivering. She frowned and tried to wrap herself in her bedroll to mask it. Then she remembered something that had been niggling at the back of her mind, and turned to the lance-corporal.

“So what’s with the alleyman babble, Widogast?”

He jumped a bit. “What?”

She leaned forward. “You were speaking German. Back there, when we found Veth. You don’t remember?”

“No... No, I-“

“You a bloody kraut, then?” It came out angrier than she’d planned, the words given edge by her nervousness, and she regretted it immediately.

Jester sat up and put a hand between them. “Hey! Beau! Can we- does it matter? After all that?”

Veth was also sitting up slightly, one hand on her knife.

“Of course-“ Beau stopped. _Does it matter? Or are you just angry?_ She sat back. “No. No it doesn’t. I’m… I’m sorry. I was just- I wanted to know why.”

Caleb ran a hand down his face. “It’s all right. I understand. We’re all tired and on edge. But, yes. I’m German. I defected.” He patted Veth reassuringly, and she sank back down with a sour look at Beau.

Caduceus poured everybody another round of tea. “You talked about the people who taught you, Caleb. Have they got something to do with this? With why you defected?”

Caleb wrapped his hands around the mug to warm them. “Yes. All this – the mission? The place we’re going? It’s all to do with our powers. The things we can do. The people I trained with, they do… experiments, to awaken what’s there, to make the seed germinate. I was a recruiter. We went around, to find people with potential, to bring them in and make sure they could be used. We took them to the facility.” He blew at the hot tea. “That’s where we’re going. It’s not an ordinary weapon, it’s… people like us.”

Fjord frowned. “What do you mean, people like us?”

“These powers have always existed, as I said. Of course they would be used in fighting, that’s just human nature. But there was an agreement, some time ago, after Crimea. That things like… the things we can do… they shouldn’t be used in war. There were some people that did, there. And it got bad, very bad.” He made a sarcastic grimace. “Even worse, from the point of view of the officers, there were journalists there to see. People that had to be silenced. That hadn’t happened before. It was a mess. So in the end there was a secret council of nations that decided not to use it ever again.” He shook his head. “But they’ve started to do it again, now. They’re getting desperate. Things aren’t progressing. They tried the new weapons, then the gas, and then the tanks. And now this.”

“So they’re using them? Turning them into weapons? Human weapons?”

Caleb nodded. “I’ve seen it. That’s why we need to stop them. If we don’t… they’ll probably win the war.”

Veth nodded. “It doesn’t really change the mission, though, does it?”

“Well…”

She turned to the captain. “We’re supposed to take them out, yeah?”

Fjord nodded. “That’s the plan. At least, that was the plan, before I knew they could do magic. Now…?” He looked around at the others and threw his hands up. “I’m taking suggestions.”

Beau put a hand on her chest and acted scandalised. “What’s all this now? You’re taking suggestions, _captain_?”

“Yes, yes, I know that I’m technically your commanding officer, but… I think… in light of the recent circumstance… we might be better off with a more… flat line of command.” Fjord looked uncomfortable and avoided her gaze.

Caduceus looked confused. “Huh? I’m not getting this.”

“He means he doesn’t want to give orders anymore, cause he’s scared.” Veth grinned.

Fjord bristled. “I am not scared! I’m just acknowledging that we might benefit from a more egalitarian power structure right now, all right? Some consensus agreements? I mean, I can’t be the only one that feels a bit out of their comfort zone here, yes?”

“Fair enough,” the chaplain replied. “I’m good with consensus, if everybody else agrees to it.”

Caleb smiled. “That’s what consensus means, padre.”

“Oh, right. If I can make a suggestion to the group, then?”

“Lay it on us,” Beau said and drained her mug.

“Let’s sleep. We’ve been through a lot, and Veth needs to rest.” He looked around the group, and everyone nodded. “Nice. Then we can plan more when we’re rested.”

Fjord stretched and yawned. “Very good idea. We should try to move in the quiet hours anyway. Hour and a half watches? Brenatto gets to sleep in.” He nodded to the sniper who gave him a thumbs up.

Beau put her hand up. “I can do the first.”

“Good. Wake me next.” He rooted around inside his coat and pulled out a pocket watch and gave it a few quick turns. “See you in a bit.”

She took the watch. “Sure thing, Stone.”

He grimaced. “Fjord, please. If we’re dropping titles.”

“Heh. Sure.”

Caduceus put the Primus out and packed it away. They rolled out their bedrolls and got as comfortable as possible in the little den, pressed up against each other, packs all lined up along the edges. Beau got her rifle out and leaned the impromptu door against the opening and arranged the vegetation so it was mostly hidden. Then she sat down in the shade of a tree where she could see most of the surrounding forest in the rising light of the dawn. She could hear the light snores from the chaplain and the Russian mingling as the rest of the group drifted off to sleep.

She took out the pocket watch and looked at it. It had an engraving of a ship at sea on the back, and on top there was a little spring. When she pressed it, the watch opened with a small pop. There was nothing inside, but when she peered closer at it in the low light, she could see an inscription inside the lid. She took out a book of matches and lit one on the stone. Looking close, she could make out the words “ _Navigare necesse est. -Vandran_ ”. She blew out the match, closed the watch again and put it back in her pocket.

 _The ocean, huh? One more piece of the puzzle, Mr. Stone. But I still don’t really know who any of them are_ , she thought. _Everybody has a secret, it seems. Who’s Vandran? Why did you defect, Herr Widogast? Why did you lose your wings, Miss Nydoorin? I get the feeling that some of them have done some really bad shit._ She leaned her head against the rough bark of the tree. _But I do know that they didn’t scream at me._ _It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out._

The dawn crept soundlessly through the forest as the watch ticked on.


	5. Into Germany

The morning broke, and the day passed without incident as the group took turns keeping watch, letting Veth sleep and recuperate. The occasional low thunder could be heard from the southwest, signifying an attack or counterattack – another hundred meters gained or lost, another hundred lives spent to uphold the status quo. Eventually, the sun began to creep towards the horizon again, and Jester, who had lucked out at the last watch, began to wake the rest. Quickly and efficiently, they broke camp while Caduceus put on some tea. When all the gear was packed and the hut disassembled, they gathered in a circle around the Primus and had some dry rations and a hot drink.

“Before anybody else says anything…” Beau looked around the group. “Did yesterday really happen?”

The others looked at each other. Then, Veth made a quick gesture, and a blue, spectral hand slapped Beau in the back of the head, making her spit out the mouthful of tea.

“Real enough for you, froggie?”

“Fair. Yeah. Just making sure,” Beau replied and massaged the sore spot.

Veth grinned and used the blue hand to top up her mug. “So where do we go from here?”

Fjord took out the map and spread it out next to the Primus. “So we’re around here, close to Étain. The border is a bit east of Briey – that’s the next major obstacle. When we’re inside Germany, we need to get over here – Tiefenstein, yes?” He pointed to a place on the map and looked at Caleb, who nodded.

“Yes. The facility is located outside the village proper. It’s called Vergessen Sanatorium. It’s supposed to be a hospital, but… well. Let’s just say it’s not.” 

“And when we get there,” Yasha interjected. “What then?”

“Well.” Caleb shifted uncomfortably. “The plan was to infiltrate the facility, then… do whatever was necessary.”

Beau put her mug down firmly. “All right. We said before that it’s all cards on the table, right? No keeping things back. If we’re going to be in this together as equals, we need all the info. Fjord?”

The captain put his hands up. “My orders were to take you all, lead you on a covert mission to find this facility, and then to either gather intel or to overtake it by any means necessary and eliminate the threat. It wasn’t really very specifically worded, but they said that others had tried and failed before us. I got the idea that it was a bit… desperate.” He looked around at the group. “Knowing what I know now, I think they’re basically throwing everything but the kitchen sink at this problem. I would guess that we’re the last hope.”

Caleb sighed. “You’re right. I got the same orders as you – take the strongest we have and do whatever you can to stop them. I got you, because everybody else were busy, too weak or already dead. I was supposed to introduce you to each other and the idea of powers slowly. I wasn’t prepared that… uh, things would… progress this fast. Or that you were, ah, quite so perceptive.” He glanced at Caduceus.

“This is better,” the chaplain said and sipped on his tea. “We can plan better like this.”

Veth shrugged. “What’s there to plan? We go in, we do the thing. You were told this was an infiltrate and destroy mission, right? I’ll admit that Caleb told me a bit more. I knew about what the weapon was. But we still need to infiltrate and destroy.” She gave Caleb a glance.

“But these are people, though,” Ford said and frowned. “Not a bomb, or, or a new kind of gas, or something. It’s people.”

“They’re people who made choices,” Veth replied with another shrug. “They made the choice to use their powers to try to win the war. Right?” She kept staring at Caleb, like she wanted him to say something.

Caleb ran his hands through his matted hair with a frustrated gesture. “Ostensibly, yes. But if there’s a way to do it with as little bloodshed as possible…”

Beau raised an eyebrow. “Why? I mean, the gods know I’m no patriot, but we should try to stop them before they kill a bunch of our people, right?”

Caleb hesitated, looked at Veth, then started up again; but before he could speak there was a chirping sound, and a nightingale landed on the map.

Beau laughed. “Hey, it’s the bird again! I thought it got shot down over Verdun. Resilient little bastard.”

Caleb sighed with relief and held his hand out, and the little bird hopped up on his palm. “No, it… it’s fine. He’s always fine.” The bird ruffled its feathers and chirped again. “Frumpkin? You can show yourself, _mine Freunde_.” 

The bird ruffled its feathers again and poofed up – then kept poofing, getting bigger and bigger. The feathers melded together and turned smooth and furry, the claws grew fur, the beak retracted and turned soft and the tailfeathers became just a tail. Within seconds, the bird was gone and a ginger Bengal cat sat in Caleb’s lap. Jester squealed and clapped her hands together.

“Oh my _god_ , Caleb! It’s so cute!” She reached over and petted the cat, who leaned into her palm and purred. “How did it do that?”

“The powers manifest in animals as well, sometimes,” Caleb said with a smile. “They… don’t usually survive that long. They tend to get into accidents or be killed off. But Frumpkin is very intelligent. He knows to keep away from people that might want to harm him.” He gave the cat a scritch behind the ear. “He’s very resilient, as you said. And he can transform into a number of animals. He seems to prefer being a cat, however.”

“I preferred it as a bird, to be honest,” Fjord said and wiped his nose. “We should get going, by the way.”

Jester sat up and petted the cat one last time. “Try to pass the border before dawn, yes?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Veth picked the cat up and placed him on top of her pack, where he made himself comfortable behind her head and started purring.

Beau hoisted her pack up and adjusted the straps as she studied Caleb furtively. _That bird came at an awfully convenient time, Widogast. Like it was saving you from having to answer an uncomfortable question. Well, we have time._

They traced their way through the forest to the main road and started to follow it carefully, ready to leave it at any sign of movement or other people. They were moving though more open farmland now, and there was quite a bit of traffic, even at this hour – troop movements going to and from the front, mostly. Civilians kept inside for the night, the few of them that hadn’t fled the fighting. They spoke quietly or not at all, accepting boredom for gained stealth. Caleb and Caduceus, who had the sharpest eyes, moved in the front to keep an eye on the road ahead while Yasha and Beau kept up the rear. Early in the morning, after several hour’s march, the group noticed an increased amount of troop movements, and they abandoned the road again.

“We’ll be getting up on the border soon,” Ford said as they took a short water pause. “What’s the plan?”

Caleb scratched his unshaven chin. “We could try to go around, but it’ll be patrolled quite heavily – we can almost count on getting caught. If we want to avoid conflict, our best bet would be to just… go across.” He turned to Jester. “How sure do you feel about your forgery?”

Veth and Jester looked at each other. “I feel good,” the medic replied. “I mean, everything that’s supposed to be there according to you, it’s there. So… it comes down to you presenting it well.”

Beau nodded at the captain. “Fjord is the one who’s supposed to be the officer. How are we going to explain that he doesn’t speak German?”

“What about if we all pretend to be wounded?” Yasha suggested.

Jester lit up. “Oooh, that’s a good one! You can pretend to have some kind of throat wound, Fjord. I can paint you!”

“Well… yeah, I think that could work,” Fjord replied.

“I have just the thing.” Jester kneeled in the moss and opened up her med kit. “First, we need some blood to soak these in.”

Yasha pulled her knife from its sheath and rolled her sleeve up, then made a long slash across her forearm and showed the already profusely bleeding wound to Jester, who recoiled a bit.

“Oh! I didn’t mean…”

“It’s alright,” Yasha said with a smile. “It’ll heal quickly. This way I have a wound as well.”

Yasha held the bandages against her arm until they were suitably stained, then Jester wound them around Fjord’s throat. Yasha wound some bandages around her arm and tied the ends around her neck like a sling. Caduceus mussed his hair up, then picked out a couple of herbs from his packets and started chewing on them. Veth wound another batch of stained bandages around her head, and Beau quickly broke some branches and fashioned a crude crutch to lean on. Caleb didn’t change his appearance, but he did manage to convince Frumpkin to turn into a bird again to avoid detection. Finally, Jester rubbed some paint on their faces to make them look sicker and more haggard, then looked them over critically.

“Fjord, look more tired. Veth, can you cough more convincingly? Beau, you need to lean on the crutch, you don’t look like your leg is broken enough. Caleb… just do what you usually do.”

Beau laughed. “Jester, I promise to look half dead when we get there! I don’t want to jump around on one leg in the moss, I’ll fall and actually hurt myself.”

“No you won’t! You’re really good at falling, you said so,” the medic replied cheerfully. “Think this’ll work, Caleb?”

Caleb shrugged. “If it doesn’t, it won’t be for lack of trying. Remember, let me talk, the rest of you, just play wounded.”

They moved back to the road and started to make their way toward the border slowly, limping and coughing all the way. A lorry and a motorcycle ordonnance passed them, one after the other – both times the driver gave them nothing but a cursory glance and drove on. Within a kilometre, the border post came in sight, lit by multiple lights, fortified by barbed wire and sandbags. Several soldiers trained rifles at them, and an older, thickset officer hailed them.

<Halt! Stay where you are. Name and regiment?>

Caleb raised the papers in one hand. < _Hauptmann_ Stein of the 98th infantry. I’m _Gefreiter_ Widogast.>

The officer waved them forward. <Approach.>

The group did so, keeping up the appearance of sickness as best they could. One of the guards took the offered papers and gave them to the officer, who studied them in the light of a lantern. She read them carefully, examining each sheet, and Beau could feel beads of sweat begin to gather at her temples. She exchanged a quick glance with Veth, whose hand moved barely perceptibly towards one of her hidden knives. Then the officer took out a stamp and stamped each of the papers in quick succession and handed them back to Fjord with a disapproving look.

<Why didn’t you announce your troop yourself, _Haupmann_ Stein?>

Fjord shook his head tiredly and gestured towards his throat. The officer raised the lantern and looked at the bloody bandages, then looked around at the group. Beau leaned into the crutch a bit more, and Yasha did her best to look like her arm was useless. The officer sighed.

<I see. Well, you get to go home at least. 98th, that’s Metz, right? Not too far for you then. But they could at least have given you a ride.>

Fjord shrugged. Caduceus took the opportunity to feign a cough attack, hawking up the red-tainted herbs he’d been chewing on, making it look like he was spitting blood. The officer gave him a disgusted look and shouted to the guards.

<Let them through!>

The barricades were quickly moved aside, and the group waved through. They did their best to not meet anyone’s eyes. The arrival of three lorries bound for the front helped take the focus from them, and they hurried on into Germany. Beau could see the soldiers in the lorries stare at them as they slowly drove past, and cringed a bit at how young they all seemed. _Poor bastards. You have no idea what you’re getting into._

The border disappeared behind them, but they kept up appearances for another kilometre or so before veering off into the forest again to avoid Moyeuvre. When they felt sure that there was no-one around, the group relaxed a bit and started to take off their face paint and fake bandages. Caleb looked around for the nightingale, but relaxed when the cat came padding out from the bushes.

Beau threw the crutch into a bush and stretched out, popping her joints. “Shit, I didn’t think that was going to work!”

“Well done, everyone.” Caduceus spit out the last of the herbs and rinsed his mouth out with water. “That was actually fun!”

Beau laughed at the boyish excitement of the tall, shaggy chaplain.

“Yeah, well done. That was a group effort.” Fjord looked around the group with an odd smile. “Especially those papers. Thanks, you two.” He nodded to Veth and Jester. “Alright. Let’s find a good place for the night.”

They moved further into the woods until they felt they were far enough away for random patrols. There was no convenient lean-to close by, so they made do with a makeshift windbreak against a boulder, hidden by bushes. Luckily, the early morning was clear without rain, and so the day’s rest promised to be comparably comfortable. They made a quick meal on rations, bread and sweet tea before drawing straws for watches and turning in.

Caleb had the first watch. He sat silent, petting the ginger cat, who purred contentedly in his lap. Beau couldn’t sleep, thoughts running continuously through her mind, over and over again – replaying the conversation they’d had last night, and the gaping holes in the logic of their mission; holes that Caleb had dodged by the convenient arrival of the nightingale. Cat. Whatever. She rolled over and propped herself up on her elbows.

“Hey. Caleb,” she whispered.

“Yes?” he answered quietly, still looking out over the forest, misty in the morning light.

“We’re going to stop the Germans from doing this. Right?”

“…yes?” There was a slight hesitation in his voice now.

“From using… people like us… in the war. In any war. That’s why we’re doing this. Right?”

“Right.”

She leaned her head in one hand. “So… what are we, then?”

“What?” This time, he turned to look at her.

“ _We’re_ in the war. They’re using us. Britain, France and Russia. The Entente powers. They’re using us to stop the Central powers from winning. How is that different?”

He didn’t answer.

She leaned forward and tried to catch his gaze. “Caleb. Do you honestly think that they’ll just let us go? That when we’ve done this for them, they’ll just let us run off wherever and never bother us again? You ran off and got snatched up by somebody else, right away. People like us are always going to be used by one power or another, aren’t we? That’s what you’re afraid of?”

He sighed again, then nodded. Beau sat up and leaned her chin on her knees, staring out into the mist.

“Does this happen in other places, too?”

Caleb looked away again. “I’ve… I’ve heard of it, yes. Others do this as well. If your father hadn’t thrown you out, you would likely have been picked up by the French forces, like Jester was. Now the British got you instead.”

“You got me instead.” She couldn’t stop a note of accusation from entering her voice, and regretted it immediately when Caleb cringed like he’d been slapped.

“Yes. I got you instead.” He held on to Frumpkin even tighter. “And Fjord, and Veth, even if I never reported her. Yasha was sent by the Tsar – I don’t know why. I do know it had nothing to do with protection.”

Beau glanced at the chaplain. “And Caduceus?”

Caleb hesitated. “I… don’t know, actually.”

“I had a dream.” The voice came from underneath the wide brim of the chaplain’s hat. “The Mother told me I had to go, so I went. There was something waiting for me here.”

“Thought you were sleeping,” Beau said.

“I sleep light.” The chaplain pushed the hat back and sat up. “And your conversation is really interesting.” He stretched a bit, then looked at the lance-corporal. “Caleb, why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” the lance-corporal mumbled.

“You don’t want to go there. It’s apparent. You’re afraid of something. Or someone.” Caduceus cocked his head to the side. “Have you… got friends there?”

Caleb stared at him, then sat up abruptly, dislodging the cat. “I’m going to use a tree,” he muttered and hurried off.

Beau stared after him. “Hey-!”

Caduceus put a hand up. “Let him go. He needs to think a bit.”

“Yah, let him go, and go back to sleep,” came a muffled voice from Jester’s bedroll.

Beau chuckled. “Why are _you_ awake?”

“Because you guys are _talking_ ,” she whined.

“Because somebody won’t _shut up_ ,” Fjord grumbled at the same time.

Beau laughed. “Sorry, guys.”

Veth yawned and sat up as well. When she noticed that Caleb was missing, she swore.

“He ran off again?”

Beau nodded. “You know him better than anyone. He really doesn’t want to go to Tiefenstein, does he?”

Veth bit her lip and looked after the lance-corporal. “No. No, he doesn’t. He’s… told me a bit about it. It was bad. Really bad. Like… torture bad.” She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t want to say too much, you see. It’s his story. But it’s really shitty of the British to send him back there.”

“You’re really fond of him, aren’t you?” Caduceus put a gentle hand on hers.

Veth stared at his hand. “I don’t care a godsdamned jot about this war, or the Empire, or the king or any of them, see? They can burn for all I care. But I’d kill for him. He’s saved my life and I’ve saved his. All I want is to keep him safe. From himself, if I have to. From his own damn conscience.”

Caduceus lay back on the bedroll. “So he’s got somebody left there, then?”

Veth nodded. “Give him time to tell it, all right? But yeah. He does. I’m… I think they made their decisions. He ran. They didn’t. But he’s… still attached.”

“Well, if they were his friends, it’s hard to let go, right?” Jester said and yawned. “We’ll make a plan so that nobody gets hurt.”

Fjord looked up and frowned. “Jester… you do know that this is war, right? That’s a nice sentiment, but…”

“Of course I know,” she replied, a tad sharply. “But we can always try.”

Fjord hummed noncommittally and laid back down.

Caleb didn’t come back for a long while. In the end, Beau decided to take over the watch, and the others went back to sleep.


	6. On the road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gone back and made some small textual edits as well as inserting a couple of sententences in earlier chapters, nothing major.

The following night, Caleb was quiet and distant. Fjord told Beau in hushed tones that he’d returned in the afternoon and had gone straight to sleep without answering any questions. After trying to strike up a conversation and getting nothing but hums and grunts, Beau decided to leave off and not bother him just yet. Give him time, Veth had said, even if her curiosity was nagging her. She talked with the others instead, looking at the map and planning the route ahead. If Caleb was right, if would take them roughly a week to reach their destination – one whole week in enemy territory. It was a daunting prospect, to be sure, but the general consensus was that it couldn’t be worse than what they had already endured. Jester pointed out that there was, for instance, very little risk of getting caught in artillery fire on a country road, after which she was chased by Veth a bit.

After calming Veth down, they broke camp and continued due northeast without much ado. The weather was fine – crisp and not too cold; the colours of autumn were on full display, adorning the trees in fiery reds, yellows and browns with lingering hints of green. There was less troop movement the further from the border they moved, but despite that the group kept away from the main roads as much as possible. Instead, their route took them through farmlands, small villages and deep forests. Their uniforms shielded them from casual scrutiny by the people they met; most everybody wasn’t interested in talking, concentrating instead on taking in the last of the harvest and preparing for winter. They got nods, sad glances – and once or twice angry stares and a bitter word of blame. Most people they met were sick, children or old; anybody strong and able-bodied between fifteen and fifty had already been drafted.

Jester’s gift of hiding them came in good use now and then, when they had to avoid convoys of military vehicles. Food proved to be much less of a problem than Beau had feared – Veth turned out to be a very capable thief, and more than one farmstead had a chicken or a handful of root vegetables less than before they passed it. Caduceus knew which mushrooms, berries and plants were edible, and Yasha spent whatever free time she had catching fish in the cold mountain streams. Beau felt strange, walking along with the others. It took her a full day before she realised that she was feeling happy. When the insight hit her, she had to stop for a second before starting up again, garnering a concerned glance from Fjord. She waved him off with a nervous laugh.

“It’s fine. I just need to adjust my pack.”

He nodded and walked on. She made a show of adjusting one of the straps, then followed him, deep in thought. Every gang she’d been in, every clique, there’d never been friends. There’d always been that divide between her and the others. It was the rumours – _there’s something wrong with her. She’s weird. But useful._ Always that, always useful – good to have in a scrap, but not afterwards. She’d begun to anticipate the inevitable rejection, to reject herself before it could happen. She’d built strong, thick walls around herself, isolating and protecting. And now, bit by bit, the walls were crumbling. Jester’s banter, Veth’s jokes, Fjords thoughtful discussions: Caduceus’ insights and naivete, Yasha’s calm quirkiness and even Caleb’s reserved acceptance. All of it made her antsy. She could feel her defences lowering despite herself and cringed inwardly at the backlash that she was sure would come.

She wasn’t the only one. After the first few days with good weather and no confrontations, the whole group relaxed. They started to slow down and move more in the daytime, to talk more, exchange jokes and stories. Jester told them about her mother, the Ruby of Marseille, of her red hair and angelic voice, and her childhood in Le Chateau Luxueux. Veth told them, over a flask of whiskey, about the husband and child she’d lost to tuberculosis, and how it led to her joining the army not out of a sense of duty, but from a lack of anything else to do. Caduceus told them stories of his family, which seemed to be huge and sprawling and consist of nothing but either priests or undertakers, and their life in the outback of New South Wales. Beau shared a few carefully curated anecdotes of the exploits of her old gang, especially the tale of when they stole her father’s wine and sold it on the black market. One night, fuelled by the seemingly unending supply of liquor in Veth’s flask (Beau strongly suspected she was topping it up on her many raids on the surrounding farms), they found themselves on the topic of religion.

Yasha was looking incredulously at the chaplain. “So… no punishments?”

“No, the Mother doesn’t care about that. You do your best, and that’s that.” Caduceus took a draught on his pipe.

Yasha shook her head. “The Lord of Storms is much stricter. We should adhere to the tenets – strength, faith, control. If you fail, you need to make reparations.”

Beau leaned forward. “Reparations how?”

“Things like… working for someone, doing labour,” Yasha replied. “A night of prayer. Abstaining from things.”

Jester sighed. “That sounds so hard! The Traveller is much nicer than that. He doesn’t want me to do things, he’s just my friend!”

“But… how did you hear about him?” Beau took a swig from the flask and passed it to Fjord.

“He came to me! When I was a child in Marseille. Since I wasn’t allowed to go out a lot, I was in my room, you know? I read and painted, and spied on all the clients in the brothel. I made up stories about them, and drew them – Mama always thought it was so much fun. I’d read them to her in the mornings.” She sat up and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Then one day, there was a client. He had long, flaming orange hair and a really fancy green suit. He’d come back, night after night – and one night, I went down to talk to him. He showed me how do this!” She moved her hand again, making the copy of herself spark into life.

Caleb looked up from his book and nodded slowly. “The Aspect of Illusion. I wonder if he had powers himself. He must have seen that in you.”

“Of course he has powers, he’s a god! He said so himself. And he _was_ so powerful, you can’t imagine. He could make himself look like anything. He could walk through walls! And he helped me spy. He’d put his hands around mine, like this, and we’d look into a bowl and I could see any person I wanted!”

Caleb frowned. “I’ve…. never heard of that power before.” He leafed forward to a fresh page in the book and scribbled on it. “What was his name?”

Jester smiled. “He calls himself the Traveller. He said that it’s his god name. But Mama said she recognised him from before, and that his name was Monsieur Artagan.” She shrugged. “I guess he’d been looking for a disciple for a while.”

“Are you sure he was a god?” Fjord asked hesitantly. “I mean… Caleb can make fire from nothing, and he’s not a god.”

“Of course he is,” Jester said and rolled her eyes. “If you’d ever met him, you wouldn’t doubt it!”

Fjord started to reply, but Beau interrupted him with a pointed look. “I’d like to meet him sometime. He seems interesting, if nothing else. I remember meeting this guy once who sounds like him – he had the most ostentatious hat I’d ever seen!”

The conversation steered away from Jester’s deity, and soon enough, the group started to drift off to sleep. Beau had the watch, but Caleb was keeping her company for a few minutes more. Beau leaned against a tree and made herself comfortable.

“Do you think that guy was a god for real?”

Caleb shrugged. “I’ve never seen a god. He might have thought so himself. Think about it. If you’re the only person you know with these powers – maybe very strong powers, like it seems this man had – what would you think about yourself?”

Beau snorted. “I know what I thought.”

“Heh. Well. But if you’re somebody who thinks very highly of yourself to begin with, what then?” He looked out into the night. “No, I don’t think he’s a god. But I do think he thought he was. And Jester certainly thinks he was.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what to do about that. If thinking that makes her happy, maybe let it be?”

“But if he was deceiving her-“

“We want to be deceived, sometimes.” He looked away. “Sometimes, facing the reality of what you’re really doing is too painful.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Bullshit. That’s no way to live. Lying to yourself all the time.”

Caleb looked up at her, frowning, obviously confused. Beau didn’t back down, just kept looking at him. _No time like the present._

“Are you going to run, now?”

He looked away again and picked at the fabric of his coat.

“You might want to talk to us about whatever it is that’s coming, Caleb. It’s not going to make things easier if you keep keeping secrets.”

“… you’re right. I just… It’s complicated.”

She put a hand on his arm. “I get that. And I’m not saying you have to tell us your life story. Just whatever is important for us to do this. Right?”

He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “No, you’re right. I… I will. Soon. All right? Before we get there. I promise.”

“Fair enough.” She climbed into her bed roll and made herself comfortable. He glanced at her, then started petting Frumpkin with a thoughtful look. Beau smiled to herself and fell asleep.

The following day, the weather continued nice, but the going was getting harder. The landscape was changing to more mountainous, with deep river valleys that had to be crossed via serpentine trails. Everybody got tired and sweaty from the constant change in altitude, so that afternoon Jester managed to talk the rest of the group into washing both their clothes and themselves in one of the streams. Veth tried to argue that it really wasn’t necessary, and the water was far too cold, but Jester sniffed pointedly in the air and countered that _certain people_ could really do with a wash, and that was that.

They found a wide, low gravel beach where the water ran slowly again after passing some rapids. Yasha and Jester both stripped down to their underclothes without much ado. The medic made a running jump and a loud splash as she found the deepest part of the water. Veth, grumbling about the temperature, found a little eddy where she could wash off without entering the stream itself. Caduceus stripped completely naked, found a nice stone and put his feet in the water, splashing them with obvious enjoyment as he stared packing a pipe. Fjord took off his shirt but left it at that, opting instead to wash his face and taking out a razor and some lather. Caleb found a boulder, went behind it and came back a few minutes later with a bundle of dirty clothes, dressed in his spares. He picked up Veth’s clothes and started to clean them along with his own without comment.

Beau was rooting around in her pack and taking her sweet time. She felt the peach fuzz on her head and considered her own shaving kit for a second. _Nah. Let’s let it grow a bit. You can always cut it if we get back to the front._ She packed the kit away and took off her shirt, shoes and socks and went down to the water to join the others. She lounged on the bank for a bit, face turned towards the sun, and watched the clouds drift across the sky.

After washing off, Yasha had decided to try and catch dinner. Beau sat up and watched in fascination how the huge Russian waded into the middle of the stream and stood braced against the rushing water. She slowly lowered her hands under the surface and held them there, only occasionally wiggling her fingers. Beau could see a silvery shape move against the current and up between the hands – then, in a split second, Yasha threw her hands back up and a trout lay flopping on the bank. Veth whooped and grabbed the fish, breaking its neck with one swift movement.

“Good one, Yasha!” She took out one of her many knives and started to gut the fish.

Beau clapped her hands. “How do you do that?”

“You have to tickle them,” Yasha replied. “They like that.”

“Can I try?”

Yasha straightened up and looked thoughtfully at Beau, then nodded. “If you want, sure.”

Beau rolled her pant legs up above her knees and waded into the river. It was icy cold, and she couldn’t help shivering. Further upstream, Jester was splashing around happily, seemingly unbothered by the icy temperature. Caduceus sat kneeling on the bank in only his trousers, pipe in mouth, diligently washing away the stains on his shirt, and Fjord was shaving a resigned Caleb with the straight razor.

“Stand still.” Yasha came up and stood behind Beau. “Lean down, like this. Put your hands into the water and let them just dangle there.” She pressed up against Beau’s back and guided her hands into the water.

Beau smirked and let her hands dangle. “I just wait like this?”

“M-hmm. They’ll get curious. When they come up, you tickle them, like this.” Yasha tickled Beau’s palm. Beau felt a shiver go up her spine that had very little to do with the cold water.

A trout moved closer, moving its tail lazily to stay in the same place. It came up to her fingers and seem to investigate them.

“Tickle it,” Yasha whispered.

Beau moved her fingers like Yasha had shown, and the trout remained between her hands. She tried to concentrate on keeping the fish there, but found her thoughts drifting to how Yasha’s hair fell against the back of her neck instead.

“Now!”

Beau snapped out of her reverie and tried to grab the trout, but misjudged the angle. The fish slipped between her fingers and away downstream as Beau lost her footing and almost fell over forwards, but Yasha grabbed her around the middle and steadied her.

“Thanks-!”

Yasha released her with a laugh. “It’s not so easy to learn. Again?”

“Yeah, I want to do this.” Beau wiped the water out of her face and leaned down again to try to see another fish. Then, her ears caught a sound; something tinny, something artificial that cut through the soft sounds of nature. She looked up and saw that both Caduceus and Caleb were standing up and listening as well. Then, she could see the sun glinting off something metallic – and then the forest erupted with soldiers in patchwork uniforms, their hair long and tangled, with thin faces and snarling mouths. She could hear them screaming, mostly in German, instructing each other to get the gear, get the food, and kill the bastards. Deserters.

“Shit-!“ Beau scrambled over the uneven river rocks towards her pack and the rifle beside it. Yasha reacted at the same time, launching out of the water towards her own weapons.

One of the deserters was faster than the others and got up to Caduceus, who was standing nonplussed, hands up, still clad in nothing but his trousers. The woman screamed and cracked the butt of her rifle into the chaplain’s temple, sending him crashing to the ground. As he lay groaning, the soldier stood over him and raised her rifle, ready to drive the bayonet through the prone man’s stomach.

Fjord rushed forward, screaming, as Caduceus shook his head in pain and confusion. But before he could reach them, a line of green shot out from his hand, snaking and branching, re-merging and reminding Beau of St. Elmo’s fire more than anything else. It struck the soldier in the chest, throwing her backwards several meters until she hit the ground and lay still, her body smoking slightly. Fjord stopped and stared at his trembling hands with a mixture of confusion, fear and joy.

Beau skidded to a halt. There were too many people between her and her pack. She looked around desperately for another weapon, and found a birch sapling that had been washed up by the stream. She grabbed the length of wood and saw that the captain was still standing there, staring at his hands.

“Fjord! Focus! Get to Cad, now!” When he heard her yell, he shook his head and snapped out of it. He pulled his revolver out and unloaded two shots into an advancing enemy, then ran up to Caduceus and kneeled over him.

Beau turned and tried to get a grip of what was happening. It seemed like the deserters had lost some of their momentum when they saw Fjord’s whatever it was – not that their attack had been very coordinated in the first place. There seemed to be around fifteen of them, all in various stages of starvation, haphazardly equipped, but all armed and desperate. Yasha had reached her machine gun and was hefting it one-handed, aiming at the nearest attacker. Veth was nowhere to be seen, but Beau saw one of the deserters fall, his brains splattered against the tree behind him. She must have taken up a position somewhere in the trees, which fit Beau just fine. Caleb was nowhere to be seen, but Jester had managed to get to her own rifle and was loading it frantically.

Beau didn’t have more time – another of the attackers was already aiming at her. Before she saw the muzzle blast she was already going into a roll, avoiding the bullet and closing the distance. Unfortunately, the soldier had enough dexterity to get their rifle up between them, giving a Beau a hard nock over the mouth. Swearing and spitting blood, she knocked the bayonet aside with the stick and drove her fist into the pit of the enemy’s stomach, one knuckle forward to reach that sweet spot. She could feel the crackle of energy that emanated from her hand and into the soldier, and grinned when she felt how her target stiffened up. She grabbed the stick with both hands and delivered a cracking hit to an unresponsive chin, then to the temple. The soldier collapsed to the ground and didn’t move.

Yasha was screaming bloody murder, her finger on the trigger of the machine gun, feeding it round after round from the bandoliers, mowing down several of the ragged soldiers. Beau could see the ghostly, ragged wings emerging from her shoulders, shrouding her in drifting shadows. Another of the deserters fell, shot through the heart from wherever Veth was hiding. Beau wiped the blood from her chin and tried to get to Fjord and Caduceus, when she heard Jester screaming. The medic’s rifle had jammed, and a soldier had managed to grab her and was trying to get his hands around her throat. Then, there was a crackling sound, and ice started to form around his hands, then his arms and chest. Within seconds, the man had been flash-frozen. Jester grabbed the stiff arms and broke them off to get free, then shook herself and gave the body a kick, making it fall like a particularly gruesome statue.

“Useful!” Beau yelled at her before having to dodge another bullet. Jester grinned back and grabbed the dead man’s rifle, loading and firing it at the nearest attacker.

Yasha’s furious assault paired with Veth and Jester picking off another two of the deserters made the rest faulter and hesitate until they, as one, turned and started to flee. Beau was contemplating whether or not to pursue them, when Caleb stepped out from behind the boulder. He stared fixedly at the fleeing soldiers as he raised his hands and moved them in a complicated pattern. The familiar flame appeared in his palm, and with each movement of the pattern, the flame grew, bigger and bigger, hotter and hotter until there was a raging inferno contained between his palms. His eyes were alight, matching the flame. Then, he thrust his hands forward, and a ball of superheated plasma shot out and exploded in the middle of the retreating troupe. The fire clung as it burned, and two soldiers where incinerated within seconds, their charred corpses falling to the ground. The rest were flung far from the impact site, limbs akimbo, covered in burns. None of them got up again.

Silence fell. Beau wiped away the blood that was trickling from her nose and spit red into the moss. She could hear Yasha hyperventilating, hands still grasping the machine gun tightly. Caleb had fallen to the ground and was curled into a ball and sobbing, arms over his head. When Beau ran up and tried to turn him over, he twitched and screamed and tried to get away from her hand. Veth ran out of the trees and sat at his side, petting his hair and whispering in his ear. Beau decided to leave them to it and went over to Yasha instead.

“You ok?”

<Fine. I’m fine.> Yasha was still wild-eyed and breathing heavily.

<Yeah? How about you put that down?> She pushed gently on the machine gun, and Yasha looked at it like she hadn’t realised she was still holding it.

<Oh. Yes.>

Beau took Yasha’s hand gently. <Come and help me with this mess.>

Meanwhile, Jester ran over to Caduceus and helped him up. “How’re you doing, padre? Still with us?”

“Uh… yeah.” He clutched his bleeding head and sat back down with a heavy thump. “Oh, goddess, my head hurts.”

“You got a really nasty blow.” Jester traced the edge of the wound with her fingers. “Um, can you- should I?”

“Could you? I don’t think I can do anything right now. I’m too tired.”

“No problem. But I think you’ll need a few stitches.” She got up and fetched her med kit, pulling out thread and needle and a roll of bandages, then handed the needle to Fjord. “Clean this, please. Oh, shit. Does anybody have some alcohol?”

Veth pulled out the flask and threw it to her. “Should be strong enough.”

Jester caught the flask and cleaned out the wound with water and whiskey, then took the needle that Fjord had sterilized with a match and started to stitch the wound.

Caduceus grimaced. “Aou! That stings.”

“It hurts less if you drink some of that whiskey, I’m told,” she said, tongue sticking out between her teeth from concentration. “Not that I’d know.”

“You’ve never had alcohol?”

“Nope! I don’t like it.”

“I usually don’t either,” Caduceus said and winced again. “But right now I might take some.”

While Jester helped the chaplain, Beau pulled Yasha along and went around and looked over the dead soldiers, going through their pockets and pulling them all together into a big pile. When they finished, Beau saw that Fjord was just sitting to the side, staring at his hands, holding them as far away from the rest of him as he could. She went up to him and flopped down on the grass.

“Heh. You look like I did the first time I got with a girl.”

Fjord blushed furiously and shook his head. “It’s just… shit, this? This happened. I did that.”

“You sure did, captain.”

“He was right. I didn’t… I _wanted_ to believe it, you know? But it’s just me. How could I do that? And then I did.”

“Welcome to the freakshow, buddy.” She wiped her mouth again and looked at the dried blood on her fingers. “Goddess, I think I need another bath.”

Fjord rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the pile of corpses. “We might have to do some more work first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't planned on having romance in this, but... look, the characters do what they want, sometimes. And Beau/Yasha is a wonderful ship <3


	7. Honesty

Beau and Fjord thew some ideas around, but in the end they decided to dig a shallow pit and bury the dead in it for fear of somebody seeing the smoke, should they burn them. It took less time than feared, since the lance-corporal (as soon as he recovered from his panic attack) could turn some of the earth into mud, and Veth could scoop big handfuls of it out of the ground easily with her spectral blue hand. Still, it was beginning to get dark and they were all sweaty and dirty again by the time it was finished, the bodies buried in their shallow grave.

Beau threw the shovel down, sat on the dirt pile and wiped her forehead. “Holy Mother of fuck, I need a drink. Who were these buggers, anyway?”

Caduceus sat down heavily beside her and touched his bandaged head gingerly. “Deserters. One punishment too many, most probably. They looked like they’d been living rough for a while. There’s probably a camp around here somewhere.”

Fjord frowned. “Should we go look for it, do you think?”

Beau shook her head. “We don’t have the time. A quick dip, and then we should get as far away from here as possible.”

“Agreed,” Veth said and nodded. “We were noisy as all hells. Even this far up the mountain, somebody might’ve heard it.”

They all got up tiredly, washed off and geared up in silence. After climbing the hill, Beau looked back to see the disturbed, burned earth, the muddy pile of dirt and the many spots of blood. She bit her lip and looked around in the twilight. _We need to be godsdamn lucky if nobody finds our trail after this._ She stared around the landscape for a minute before hurrying after the rest of the group. They marched for a few hours to get as much space between them and the site of the attack as possible. No-one seemed keen on making conversation, each of them lost in their own contemplation. Caleb was walking like a zombie, staring at the ground and rubbing his forearms repeatedly. Caduceus was stumbling a bit until Fjord took his arm and draped it over his own shoulders to steady him.

Beau and Veth made little scouting forays to look for a good, secluded spot, and when the chaplain finally announced that he really didn’t have any energy left, they decided on a thick hazel grove beside a sheer cliff face. Caleb had Frumpkin turn into an owl and make a few passes over the landscape to make sure there was no settlements close by. When they were reasonably sure that they were unlikely to be disturbed, the group relaxed a bit and made camp. It turned out that Yasha had brought the trout with her, and she stuffed it with some of Caduceus’s salt and herbs before tying it to a stick and angling it in front of the fire. Soon, the smell of grilled fish made everybody’s mouth water.

After a meal of trout and tinned potatoes, they all relaxed with some tea before turning in. Beau poked at the dying embers with the empty stick and watched the discarded fish scales dry up, curl at the edges and burst into flame one by one. She picked up a fish bone from the ashes and picked her teeth with it as she studied the captain surreptitiously. He was staring at his hands again, obviously thinking about what had happened earlier. She flipped the bone into the fire and put her hands behind her head casually and leaned back.

“So. Who’s Vandran?”

Fjord choked on his tea and had to cough violently before he managed to stop himself and stare at her.

“What the- how do you know about him?”

She flipped a thumb towards his pack. “Your watch.”

Fjord swore and slapped his knee. “Right. I’d forgotten about that.”

Beau sat up and fixed him with a stare. “You’re not a soldier, and you’re certainly not an officer. Who are you? You’re good at hiding it, but I’m really good at telling when someone’s bullshitting. You haven’t been sharing with the rest of us.”

The captain looked around. Everybody was listening now, and the attention was clearly making him uncomfortable. Stalling, he leaned over and picked out the watch from his pack. He turned it over in his hands as he considered.

“It’s all right, you know,” Caduceus said. “You can trust us.”

Fjord stared at him, then sighed. “I wanted something else, you know,” he said finally. “I was nobody. I’ve been pretending to be other people my whole life. The only time I felt like myself was on the ship.”

Beau nodded. “ _Navigare necesse est._ You were a sailor?”

“Yeah. On a tradesman.” He opened the watch and looked at the inscription. “It got sunk by a warship. Went down with all hands, except for me. Vandran was my captain.” He closed the watch again with a click. “I just wanted revenge after that. But I… I don’t know, I wanted some kind of say of where I went, you know? Just being a private didn’t cut it. I wanted command. So I pretended to be somebody. A minor lord.” He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

Veth burst into laughter. “Seriously? That’s glorious!”

He threw his hands up. “It was easy! Do you realise how much shit people swallow? It’s absurdly simple. I just smile, and people do what I want.” He sighed. “The only time that didn’t go was with Vandran. First time I tried that with him, he gave me a clip around the ear. It was… nice. With him, I could be myself. Find myself. Not be nobody.”

Veth rolled her eyes and threw a hazelnut at him. “Fjord, you’re not nobody. You’re a scrawny little twerp, but you’re not nobody. You’re like us!”

He made a face at her. “How kind of you. It’s just… I’m just very good at pulling the wool over people’s eyes, you know. That’s not magic. That’s just being a shit person.”

“Well, I don’t know about not being a shit person,” Veth said with a grin. “But now you do have… powers, or magic, or whatever you want to call it.”

He smiled, an open boyish smile. “I do, don’t I?”

“Yeah! You’ve always had them. All that shit you made people eat? I mean, people are stupid, don’t get me wrong, but it’s you. You’ve got a gift for that, like, a- an Aspect, I guess. The Aspect of Bullshittery?” She shrugged.

Caleb sighed. “Deception. Very close to Illusion. It seems like you and Jester have quite a bit in common. And the other one…” He made a gesture. “Your green fire? I’m very familiar with that one. That’s energy manipulation – Evocation. I’m surprised. It’s not very usual for Aspects to combine like that.”

Fjord looked surprised. “Really?”

“Really. Usually, they keep within the same, well. Category, I guess?”

Fjord looked eagerly at him. “How do you, um. How do you learn more?”

Caleb barked out a laugh and buried his face in his hands.

“Something wrong?”

Caleb pulled his hands though his hair. “No. No, it’s just… It’s weird to me. To see someone who genuinely wants this. I felt… I felt the same way when Veth asked me to teach her.”

Fjord turned to her. “You wanted to learn more as well?”

“Well, yes. I mean, why wouldn’t I? It’s prefect for keeping alive. Some of us are dealt a bad hand from the start, eh?” She kicked lightly at Fjord’s shoe. “No sense in not using every trick in the book.”

“Depends on the book,” Caleb said darkly.

Fjord pressed on. “So… _you_ don’t want to know more?”

“I know enough. I know what can go wrong, what we can _do_ wrong. I’ve done a lot of very bad things to know what I do.”

Jester fiddled with her empty mug. “If you could choose not to have these powers… would you?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

Veth made a face. “It shouldn’t have to be a bad thing. Nothing to be ashamed about.”

“It isn’t,” Caduceus said calmly. “If you feel like it is, then it’s just a matter of perspective.”

“Damn right.” Veth drained her mug. “Did they know back home, for you?”

“My family did. We kept it between us. I only met a couple others, among the Koori. They had traditions, they know what it is, and they’re careful to keep it between them. They don’t want us newcomers to have any more excuses to treat them like something less than human.”

For the first time since Verdun, Beau heard a note of anger in his voice. She picked up a couple of hazelnuts and threw them into the fire.

“That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? People _do_ think we’re less than human. They’re afraid.” She felt the bitterness rise again and tried to force it down.

Caleb stared at her, then shuddered. “Not… not everyone. There are good people out there as well.”

“Yeah? Show me one that knows and isn’t a bastard,” Beau retorted. “And if you can find one, I guarantee you they’re surrounded by ten shitheads.” 

Caleb looked away. “You might be right, but… It’s no use getting angry about it. It doesn’t lead anywhere good.”

Beau snorted. “May get us some godsdamned respect.”

He didn’t answer. Beau spit into the fire and climbed into her bedroll. The rest of the group followed suit, except for Fjord who volunteered for first watch. Beau watched him douse the fire and settle down. As she drifted off to sleep, she saw him take out the watch again and open it with a faint smile.

**************

The days passed. The landscape was harder to traverse now, and they had to keep to small roads and trails. The altercation with the deserters made everybody nervous and careful again. Frumpkin spent most of his time as a falcon, spinning high up, keeping an eye out for any movement. The few times that he came back and screamed at them they hid as fast as they could. Only once did they have to make use of Jester’s ability, and then only because they stumbled on a lone shepherd dozing in the sunshine. They sneaked past him, moving stealthily between the bleating sheep, who didn’t seem to be overly interested in the people passing through. Caduceus found the ram, and had a lengthy conversation with it before Veth managed to drag him away.

Ever since the incident at the stream, Beau noticed that Yasha tended to walk close to her. Beau tried her best to chat her up, but Yasha spoke little, preferring to listen to the others and only once in a while offering up a reflection of her own. Beau wondered why, until she noticed that the tall, muscular woman always blushed a bit when addressed directly. _She’s shy. Not closed up. Shy._ Beau sighed. _That’s godsdamned adorable._ It seemed that the one that was best at talking to her was Jester, chatting about this and that until they happened on a topic that Yasha was comfortable talking about. Beau listened in, and found that she liked music, medieval weaponry and flowers. The two first were topics that Beau had no knowledge about, but having grown up in a winery there had always been countryside around her. She started to pick flowers along the road, bringing them to Yasha as a way of striking up a conversation. It worked well. Soon enough, it became a small pastime for the whole group to discuss flowers from their different regions, all except Caduceus, who knew little about European flora, but always picked a bunch of whatever the others said were useful as seasoning or medicine.

One morning, they happened on a patch of knee-high flowers Beau had never seen before. They were a striking combination of yellow and deep purple, and grew thick along the side of the road. Veth veered off to pick one and brought it to the group.

“What’s this one, Yash?”

“We call it _Ivan-da-Marya_. I recognise it from back home.”

Caleb looked at it as well. “That’s a _Hain-Wachtelweizen_ ,” he said. “Pretty thing.”

The other continued on while Yasha bent down to pick another one of the flowers. She held the long stem carefully and ran her finger up along it, touching each delicate yellow flower and the violet-blue leaves like a protective roof above them. Beau hung back and waited for her.

“You like flowers, huh.”

“Yes.”

She turned the flower around and held it to her nose to smell it. Beau watched her face. It had gone soft in a way she hadn’t seen before. Beau found to her surprise that she really liked the way it looked – this was a new side of the relentless fighter. They started walking again to join the others. Yash kept looking at the flower with that soft look on her face.

“I used to pick them with my wife,” she said quietly.

Beau stopped abruptly. “You… were married?”

“Yes. Zuala. We enlisted together. We wanted to fight together – we couldn’t leave each other.” Yasha’s eyes became distant and the soft look was replaced by something hard. “She was killed at Osowiec.”

Beau winced. She recognised the name, and wished that she didn’t.

“Osowiec? In… in the third battle?”

Yasha nodded.

“Oh goddess. I’m… shit. I’m sorry. I’ve heard… some of it. I heard it was bad.”

“It was.” Yasha rolled the flower slowly between her fingers. <We didn’t have any gas masks. The Germans knew, that’s why they used it. We tied wet rags over our faces. It didn’t help much.>

Beau looked around. The others had gone on ahead, leaving them alone beside the patch of flowers. Yasha was staring out into empty space, like she was seeing pictures in the air.

<They… were coughing up blood. And other things. Bits of their lungs. You know what the chlorine gas does. And still… we still retaliated. What else could we do? I was gassed as well, but… I survived it.> She gripped the flower harder, breaking the stem and crushing the delicate petals. <Zuala didn’t make it. When I saw her die, I… I just… everything went black. I don’t really remember what happened. I just… I woke up, and I was sitting among so many corpses. Just… torn apart. I had killed them all, just with my hands. My friends… they wouldn’t look at me afterwards. They called me the Angel of Death. I think… I must have had my wings out. Nobody wanted me around, after that. And… I hadn’t done anything wrong, really. I defeated the enemy, like we were told to. But… I was transferred. There must have been some kind of talk between the commands.> Yasha let the crushed flower fall from her hand.

Beau hesitated, then put a hand on Yasha’s shoulder. <I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… You don’t have to talk about it.>

<I haven’t talked about it, not at all. Maybe I should. I miss her so much.>

Yasha rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes, then leaned down to pick a new flower. She rooted around in her pack and pulled out a book. It wasn’t a huge volume, but it was made thick by the many plants pressed between its pages. Yasha opened it at an unused page and put the flower inside.

“I like this. That there are the same flowers here as back home.” Her voice was back to its normal, controlled tone.

Beau took the bait. “How was your home?”

“Wild. Warm in the summer. Cold in the winter.”

Yasha put the book back in her pack. Then she looked around as well. When she was sure that they were alone, she closed her eyes and concentrated. The wings unfolded from her shoulders, coming into being like great barren branches in the dead of winter. Yasha reached up and ran her fingers along one of the tattered, charred remnants of pinions.

“Things changed, at Osowiec. With me. Before she died… they were white. With feathers.”

Beau fumbled for something to say. “They might… come back.”

“Maybe. If I earn it.” Yasha smiled sadly and let the wings dissolve into nothing. “Let’s go.”

She picked up her pack and started after the others without another word. Beau followed her in sympathetic silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short one this time, but I wanted to get something out and it felt like a good place to pause. Next chapter we reach Tiefenstein, and Caleb's past.


	8. Vergeben und Vergessen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on out, there's a blanket warning for emotional and physical abuse as well as mentions of and allusion to eugenics. As somebody else has said, Trent Ikithon is a trigger warning all by himself.

The weather turned worse, and the last day dawned with a constant downpour that dampened both their clothes and spirits. In the evening, it was accompanied by distant thunder and lightning flashing on the horizon to the south. After looking for hours for a good place to camp, they stumbled on a strange little house in a clearing far from any village. It was cone-shaped, covered with sod all the way from the bottom up to the top, which was open with a small roof to protect the inside from the rain. The door was slightly askew, and there was a bench outside. It looked abandoned, but they dared approach it only after sending in Frumpkin in cat-form to investigate. After the cat had rummaged around and came out unscathed, Fjord motioned to the others to stay back as he crept forwards, opened the door slowly and jumped in revolver first. When he was sure it was empty, he waved to the others. The group filed into the small space. There wasn’t much to see: a central firepit, two empty bedframes, some shelves, a small altar and a lot of cobwebs.

“Well, the roof seems fine,” Yasha noted drily before leaving to get their gear.

Jester looked inside the old pot that dangled on a chain above the firepit, and found a ladle inside. Caduceus went over to the little altar. He poked around in the leaves that had blown in and found a round disc. He brushed it off and took it out into the waning daylight to see better.

“Yasha, look here,” he said as she came back. “Does this seem familiar?”

She put the packs down inside the hut and took the disc. “Yes. It’s the sigil of the Lord of Storms. But… hm. It’s a bit… weird?” She turned it over. “There’s writing. What does this say?”

He peered at it. “Forgiveness.”

“That’s… not what ours say.” She frowned. “Why would they write that?”

“Probably because it’s from here and not from your homeland,” Caduceus said with a smile. “There are many ways of worshipping the same god, you know.” He looked at the approaching thunderstorm. “Thunder is scary, and lightning can set things on fire. But then the rain comes, and things grow. If we let them.”

Yasha didn’t respond, just stared at the disc. A thunderclap went off, closer than before. Caduceus smiled again and ducked into the hut, leaving Yasha outside.

Jester passed him on her way out and turned the ladle over in her hand. “What is this place, Caleb?”

“ _Eine Köhlerhütte._ A charcoal-burners home.” He nodded to the sigil in Yasha’s hand. “They’re known for being a bit odd. There has to be kilns around here.” He looked around. “There.”

He pointed to two large mounds, overgrown with grass and small brushes, some way away. Fjord, Beau and Jester went to investigate. When Fjord went up and poked a stick at the top, it went through the thin layer of earth far too easily and he tottered on the edge, about to fall into the hole that had opened up. Beau managed to grab onto his coat at the last minute and hauled him backwards. Veth laughed so hard she had to sit down, and Beau couldn’t help laughing along, especially when she saw the look of wounded pride of Fjord’s face. She punched him in the shoulder, and he cracked up as well.

“Do you _always_ have to be first over the top, captain?” Veth said finally and wiped her eyes.

Fjord looked sheepish. “I’m curious, all right?” He turned to Beau. “Thanks for catching me – instead of laughing like _some people!_ ”

Veth put up two fingers at him and blew a raspberry. “Haul your arse down there and see if they left some coal for us, sailor boy.”

In the end, they managed to scrape together a few handfuls of coal, enough to have a fire smouldering through the night. When everybody and all the gear were safe from the storm inside the hut, they arranged themselves as best they could and set a fire in the central pit. Up in the rafters there was a rectangular rack and within minutes it was covered in socks and shirts. The air was soon thick with the smell of damp wool. The thunderstorm passed overhead, moving northward and pulling a curtain of rain after it.

Fjord took out the map and studied it. “Right. We are somewhere north of Züsch right now. Barring something bad happening, we’ll arrive in Tiefenstein tomorrow.” He looked around. “Time to make some plans?”

Beau stopped trying to wring the last of the water from her cap and sat forward. “Yeah, Caleb. What can we expect?”

“The Sanatorium is designed to be unassuming,” he replied. “There’s minimal defences outside, as not to draw attention to it. But inside we can count on highly trained soldiers and… others.”

Fjord nodded. “Hm. How do we get in?”

“We could try to fight our way in,” Jester suggested and wiggled her toes by the fire.

Caleb shook his head. “Risky. We’d almost certainly lose several of us.”

Veth shrugged. “Scale it?”

“Possible… but very hard. And it’s quite fortified, despite how innocuous it looks.”

“We could just… march up there and demand to talk to them, I guess,” Caduceus said. “They know you, yes? How would they react if you came back?”

Caleb scratched his stubbly chin. “They’d probably… hm. Maybe not welcome me with open arms, but… if we got close enough, they’d recognise you all for what you were. For good and evil. It’d… rouse interest.”

Fjord rubbed his eyes. “And then what? Look, when we thought that it was a weapon, I assumed we’d just spy on it, you know? Maybe torch it, or bomb it? But if it’s people like us…” He threw his hands up. “We can’t just murder them in cold blood.”

Veth made a grimace. “Can’t we? Where have you been the last few years?”

Jester glanced at Caleb. “Look, Caleb. I know these people were your friends. But… are you sure they can be saved? That they _should_ be saved?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I really don’t know.”

Everybody fell silent for a while. Beau poked at the fire and looked around at the others. Caduceus started to get a teapot on, busying himself with the herbs. Yasha was looking out the door, turning the disc they’d found over in her hand, staring at the pouring rain. Fjord was looking at the map again, tapping his fingers absently with a look of worry on his face. Veth and Jester were laughing over a picture Jester was drawing on the dirt floor.

“We were just kids.”

She turned to Caleb. ”What?”

“When we went there first. Just children. I spent my whole adolescence there, training. Listening. Learning. Made friends. Very good friends. They were like us – talented, he called us. Exceptional. Special. That was always the spiel. That we were better than everybody else. And that we should act like it.” He shook his head. “It’s no surprise that he got involved in the war effort. He doesn’t just want to teach and learn, he wants power. He wants _dominion_.”

Jester hugged her knees and looked at him across the fire. “He?”

“The professor. Professor Trent Ikithon. My teacher.” He pushed his hair out of his eyes with a hand that trembled slightly. “He was… a harsh teacher. Strict. Very powerful, the strongest Aspect user I’ve met. When we go there, it’ll be him we have to worry about. Him and my fellow students.”

Caducues nodded. “Your friends?”

“Yes. Astrid and Eadwulf. In the end… all that we had to do… I couldn’t take it anymore. They were… they were stronger than me. I asked them to come, but…” He sighed. “But they’re still all the family I have left. I don’t- I wish we didn’t have to kill them.”

Jester got up and sat next to him and put a hand on his knee. “We can try. You never know, maybe they’ve changed?”

Caleb smiled sadly at her. “Maybe. But I think we need to plan for if they haven’t.”

Fjord coughed awkwardly. “So. He’s a powerful man, your teacher? Probably can’t face him head on, then. What can we do instead?”

“I’d say… torching the place will do a lot to halt their progress. There’s a lot written down – names, places, experimental notes…. And equipment, too. Drugs. Other things.” Caleb rubbed his arms again unconsciously. “Getting rid of all that would definitely put a stick in the wheel, for long enough that they’d never manage to amass that kind of research again before the war is over.”

Beau frowned. “And the professor? He’ll have connections, other places he can go back to?”

”I… yes. Probably.”

“We can’t let it go, then,” Veth said decisively.

Caleb didn’t respond, only looked pleadingly at her. Jester took his hand.

“We understand that it’s hard. But if he’s that dangerous, Caleb…”

Caleb stared at her, then sighed. “Yes. You’re right. We should.”

Jester nodded and looked at the rest of the group. “But we try not to harm any of the others, yes? Not unless we have to.”

Fjord nodded. “Not unless we have to.” 

Veth sighed and threw her hands up. “Fine. If everybody else wants to do it that way.”

Fjord grinned at her and nodded. “Alright. In that case… I think we should try to bluff.”

Beau frowned. “What?”

“We want to get as far in as possible, right? We want to get to the good stuff? So bluff. Say you changed your mind. You want back into their good graces. You brought friends. That what you did, right? You recruited? So say you recruited us.” Fjord gestured at the rest of the group. “He wants followers? Here’s a whole bunch, tied up with a nice ribbon.”

Caleb rubbed his chin. “Hm. Yes. I think that may work. If I sell it well enough.”

Fjord nodded. “You think you’re up for that?”

“I can try,” Caleb said with a wry grin. “I can be very good at lying.”

“So can I. I’ll help you with that.” Fjord slapped Caleb’s shoulder. “We’ll get you through this, don’t worry.”

The lance-corporal grimaced but nodded.

They sat up late into the night, planning their approach. Caleb told them about the layout of the castle, drawing crude maps on the dirt floor to indicate the laboratory, armoury, library and private quarters. They took stock of their own gear and tried their best to think of every eventuality that might present itself. Finally, when nobody hade any more ideas or objections, they arranged themselves on the beds and the floor, trying to keep as close as possible to the smouldering fire as possible.

Sometime in the early morning, Beau woke up and realised that Yasha was gone. Concerned, she padded up and peeked out through the crooked door to see where she had gone. It was hard to spot her in the pre-dawn darkness, but Yasha sat leaned against the side of the largest kiln, looking up at the stars through the ragged remnants of the last storm clouds. She turned the little disc over in her hand, over and over. Beau closed the door again and went back to her bedroll. As she made herself comfortable again, she heard a little cough. Caduceus was looking at her from under his hat. When he had caught her gaze, he gave her a wink and turned over.

The next morning, they set off without much talking. The remaining route was weirdly peaceful, the landscape washed clean by the storm, small puddles reflecting the brilliant autumn sun. The day passed uneventfully, and it was almost sundown when they reached Tiefenstein. It lay stretched out, nestled in a picturesque little valley, low, forested mountains and hills on each side. White houses with red roofs lined the winding central street, all windows closed and shuttered. A few streetlights were flickering, the rest was dark and silence. The stopped just before the road turned downwards towards the town.

Caleb looked around to get his bearings. “We’ll keep well clear of the town – The Sanatorium is about a kilometre into the forest and up the mountainside.”

There was a small road, wide enough for a lorry and little more, that snaked its way up the mountain, flattening the ascent but adding time instead. Beau could see that Caleb was getting increasingly agitated. Veth walked right next to him and held his hand tight. Finally, a hulking shape towered in front of them in the dark, outlined by the night sky behind it. The castle was small, covered in creeping vines. It had no tall towers, only a short, squat one, but plenty of crenelations and slits for archers. Here and there, there were gas lamps and torches illuminating the grey walls. Beau felt strange - it looked almost boring, compared to what she’s been expecting. It wasn’t particularly looming or gothic… just boring. She shuddered when she remembered what Veth had said about torture. It was boring? That made it worse. Definitely worse.

Yasha leaned in and whispered to Caleb. “Is this it?”

“Yes. They’ve probably already seen us, so nothing more to it.” He squared his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

“Do or die”, Fjord muttered under his breath.

They made the last approach in silence. There was a gaggle of guards in front of the large, iron-bound doors, and the group was met with lowered bayonets as they walked into the lamplight. A young guard took a step forwards, hand up.

<Halt! What’s your business?>

Caleb raised his hands. <My name is Bren Aldric Ermendrud. If you could get a message to professor Ikithon I think he’d be most obliged.> He offered the guard a rolled-up piece of paper.

The guard read the note, then went back to talk with the others. Finally, the officer in charge nodded and pointed at Caleb.

<Stay where you are. No sudden movements. We have rifles trained on you from the turrets, as well as heavy artillery.>

Caleb nodded tersely. <Understood.>

The first guard was deployed inside the castle, and a tense silence ensued. They waited for about fifteen minutes. Beau leaned in slightly and whispered to Caleb.

“Bren Aldric Ermendrud?”

He shuddered. “Yes. I’ll… I’ll tell you later.”

When the guard returned, she was accompanied by another patrol, led by an older officer with hard, distrustful eyes. The officer looked them over, then stepped aside and made a gesture towards the inner gates.

<Professor Ikithon will see you. But we’re taking your weapons first.>

The guard’s eyes widened when Yasha handed over the machine gun. His knees buckled and he had to get help from another guard to carry it. Beau glanced at Veth, and noticed that at least one of the hidden blades that she knew about had not been handed over, and was not found in the subsequent search. _Good. At least we have out little sniper if things go arse-up._ Beau relinquished her rifle without a second thought, and noticed that Fjord seemed just as calm as her about going weaponless.

When the search was through, the officer led them inside the castle under guard. The inside was just as boring as the outside, with bare walls, devoid of any greenery in the courtyard except several well-trimmed trees. Inside the castle proper they were led into a long, high hall with darkly coloured tapestries covering the walls.

<Wait here.> The officer gave them a stern glance. <The professor will arrive soon.>

They waited, the silence broken only by the sound of their breaths. Then, a clicking sound could be heard, faintly, though a side door. The clicking grew louder, and was accompanied by the sound of shuffling footsteps. Then, a man appeared through the open door; a thin, old man with straight, stripy hair and a distinct widow’s peak, jaundiced skin and a pince-nez balanced delicately in front of his piercing eyes. Beau could feel Caleb stiffening up beside her.

She leaned in to murmur in his ear. “Is that him?”

“Yes. That’s him.” He was trembling visibly now.

The man walked slowly up to them, then stopped and looked them over. When his gaze landed on Caleb, the disapproving frown turned into a wide smile of delight, and he started forward again, one hand outstretched, the other on his death’s head cane.

<Bren. So good to see you again, my dear boy.> He grabbed Caleb’s unresisting hand and shook it heartily, then took a step back to take another look at him. <It’s been far too long. Your friends have missed you terribly!> He looked around at the group again with a raised eyebrow. <But where are my manners.> He effortlessly slipped into barely-accented English. “You have brought _new_ friends, I see.”

Caleb cleared his throat. “Yes, I-“

“I’m happy that you’ve done so well for yourself,” Ikithon interrupted. “You were always such an asocial boy, I’m amazed that you have found people that manage to stay with you, despite your many faults.”

The professor moved forward, faster than his age should have permitted, and put the knob of the cane under Caleb’s chin and tilted it upwards. Caleb froze and stared up at the ceiling. Ikithon smacked his thin lips disapprovingly.

“You do look worse for wear, though. It’s very apparent that you needed my discipline to not let yourself go, Bren. You adhered so beautifully to our regime when you were still with us. Now you look like the filthy, useless hobo you always were in spirit.”

Beau didn’t realise she’d been starting to move forward until she felt Fjord’s hand across her chest. She glanced at the captain and was met by a barely perceptible shake of the head. She turned back to the professor, who was now staring directly at her. When he saw her looking, he smiled and nodded like he’d confirmed something for himself. He took the cane away and stepped back again.

“So. You were very clear in your farewell letter. We really didn’t expect you to return. Or survive, for that matter. Why the sudden change of heart, my boy?”

Caleb swallowed. “I decided… that I was wrong. I made a mistake. So I came back. With allies.”

“I see. So you brought a little peace-making gift, then? New blood?”

He shifted focus from Caleb to the rest of the group, looking closer at each of them in turn. Beau could feel the force of his gaze like a searchlight, almost burning when it turned on you. There was no doubt in her mind that the man saw more than the surface. She forced herself to be calm, to reveal nothing, but was quite sure that she failed, at least partially. Finally, Ikithon seemed to be satisfied with his scrutiny.

“I see why. Quite a lot of potential here, Bren. So you’re all here to join forces with us, hmm? What say you, dear boy?” He turned to Fjord and stared at him.

Beau felt a bead of sweat run down the small of her back. She could feel the increase in the power of the man’s gaze from over here, and could only imagine what it was like, caught in the crosshairs of that force of will. _Lie, godsdamnit. Lie, Fjord. I know you can do it._

Fjord smiled calmly. “We’ve all experienced how the outside world treats us. Used, killed, thrown aside like so many toys. We want… something more. We want to _be_ more. I’m sure you can relate, professor?”

Ikithon nodded slightly. “Perhaps. So you want revenge?”

“We want what’s owed to us. And according to what… Bren says, you are amiably suited to give it to us.”

“And you all feel the same?” He turned to Beau, one eyebrow raised. “What do you want, my dear?”

She felt like a fly, stuck in glue, unable to flee the oncoming hand. _No way to resist it. But what about the truth?_

She cleared her throat. “I just want to punch things.”

 _Well, it’s one truth, at least._ It seemed to placate the professor, in any case.

“Ha!” He struck the flagstones lightly with the heel of his cane. “Well, I think you will find one or two like-minded people here.”

The pressure suddenly disappeared, like when the rain finally comes after a day of oppressive heat. Beau slowly let go of the lungful of air that was burning in her chest.

“Well then.” He turned back to Caleb. “We were just about to sit down to eat, my boy. Why don’t you join us?”

“That would be… good, professor.”

Ikithon turned to the officer. <Instruct the kitchen to set the table for seven more people, Ziegler. And inform my students that we’ll be having company.>

The guard made a short bow and disappeared through a side-door. The professor made an expansive gesture towards another door.

“Let us join the others, then.” He turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving the group to follow him.


	9. Dinner with the devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, blanket warning for emotional abuse, mentions of eugenics, panic attacks and torture. And Mr Icky-Thong. (I also made some small textual edits in the previous chapter to clean up the timeline.)

The dining hall was dimly lit by candelabras and gaslights, with morose paintings adorning the walls – dark landscapes or sombre people in stiff poses, scenes of war and ships at sea. A crew of servants were hastily setting the table for more people, adding plates and crystal wine glasses. A tall, broad man with dark, tightly cropped hair sat in one of the chairs, sipping on dark red wine, while a short, handsome woman with equally short hair and a mensur scar along one side of her face was standing at the open fireplace, staring into the flames. Her bare arms were covered in intricate, maze-like tattoos. She looked up without smiling as the group filed into the hall.

Jester threw her pack in a corner and ran up and started to look at the paintings, squealing happily when she found an artist she recognised. The woman looked at her in confusion for a second before she went up and joined the medic in front of a piece by Hieronymus Bosch.

“You like it?”

Jester turned to her with a brilliant smile. “Yes! I’ve always liked Bosch. Look at the little egg man here! And look, this one has a trumpet in his butt!”

The woman cleared her throat. “Hm. That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. I always focused more on the themes of the absurdity in the dichotomy of good and evil.”

“You can have that _and_ arse-trumpets, you know.”

“I suppose so,” the woman conceded and gave Jester a crooked smile. “My name is Astrid Beck.”

“Jester Lavorre,” Jester replied and shook the proffered hand. “Are you one of Caleb’s friends?”

“Caleb?” The woman looked at Caleb with a strange expression. “Yes. I suppose so.” She changed to German. <Hello, Bren.>

Caleb looked sadly at her. <Hello, Astrid.> He glanced at the tall man by the table. <Hello, Wulf.>

Eadwulf snorted. <It’s been some time. Long enough for you to change your name, it seems.>

<We’ve all changed.>

Astrid shook her head. <Not all of us.> She started to say something else, but stopped when the professor struck the floor with his cane to get their attention.

“Sit! Eat. I’m sure you’re tired. It must have been harrowing, sneaking around, trying to keep away from the enemy. We will make sure you can rest and relax.” He sat down and snapped his fingers. The servants immediately started to pull out chairs for the guests.

Beau put her pack down beside Jester’s and sat down. _Perceptive bastard_ , she thought. _Didn’t take him long to deduce most everything about us. I see why Caleb would warn us about him._ She shifted uncomfortably on the chair and couldn’t help but notice the discrepancy of her own scruffiness and the pristine state of the tablecloth. She glanced at the well-kept students and the elegant professor. _They could have given us time to wash, at least. But then, we wouldn’t feel inferior, would we?_ She frowned. _It’s that kind of game, is it? Just like father. Shit. Poor Caleb._ A servant came up with a bottle of wine and hovered at her elbow. When she nodded, a generous measure of Beaujolais was poured. Beau smelled it, judging the bouquet, then tasted it. _Immaculate. Of course._ She looked up to see Eadwulf studying her from across the table. She saluted him with the glass. He nodded and saluted back.

The professor waited until the wine had been poured, then looked down along the table and frowned.

“You have forgotten to light the candles, Astrid.”

“Apologies, professor.” She made a small gesture, and every candle on the long table sprang into flame.

The professor nodded. “Don’t think that our rules are relaxed just because we have company, girl,” he said pointedly.

She didn’t reply, just looked at her plate. Beau frowned again, and the professor smiled at her.

“I can see you are apprehensive. Don’t be afraid. This display of power may seem daunting to you, but I assure you, it is the least of Astrid’s accomplishments.”

The servants came back with a rich, hearty goulash which paired nicely with the wine, as well as baskets of newly baked bread. Beau dug in, happy to have something to eat that wasn’t canned, pilfered or fished out of a stream. She noticed that Caleb ate very little, and Caduceus none of the stew. Both he and Jester had declined the wine, but the medic was enjoying the meal just as much as Beau. 

“This is really good!” she said and dipped the bread in the goulash.

The professor smiled indulgently. “Only the best for our guests. We must celebrate this momentous occasion, must we not?” He sipped on his wine. “I am beyond pleased to meet others of our kind, even if you are new to the art.”

“Not that new,” she said through a mouthful of bread. “I’ve been doing it since I was little!” She waved her hand, and the duplicate appeared behind her, smiling and making a face.

The professor looked unimpressed. “Ah, but you have no discipline. Your powers are wild, unorganised. You lack structure.” He made a pattern with his hand, and a complicated sigil appeared in the air. He waved, and the sigil shot forwards, rushing through the duplicate and dissolving it instantly. “Order defeats chaos at every turn.”

Jester looked crestfallen. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

The professor nodded. “Exactly. You are just beginning to find your powers, most of you. Bren here, he has been training his whole life. He was on a very promising path when he decided to leave us.” He turned to Caleb. “You will have to work twice as hard to catch up to your friends, my boy. I will have to take charge of your tutelage myself, of course. What do you think?”

His finger was playing along the edge of the table knife as he stared his former student. Beau cast a quick glance at Caleb, and could see that while he looked unfazed, his knuckles had turned white from gripping his own knife.

“I look forward to it, professor.”

“Good boy.” Ikithon took another sip from his wineglass and looked down along the table. “I am not surprised that you all have found your way here. Great minds think alike, after all. We are naturally drawn to our peers. And such peers!” He smiled. “This is a commune of excellence you have come to. I have no doubt that you will fit in here, all of you. I can see the potential in you, and the need for companionship that understand you. You will find it here, I promise you that.” He stood up and dabbed the side of his mouth with his napkin. “We are above the common rabble, my friends. There is no human being more adapted to life as we are.” He went up to the high window and stared out, hands on his straight back. “Have you heard of the teachings of Charles Darwin?”

Veth mumbled something, and Jester nodded. “Survival of the fittest, right? I read a book about that!”

He turned, a wide smile on his face. “Exactly, young lady, well done. The strong survive, and the weak die, as is perfectly exemplified by these recent geopolitical developments. The great Francis Galton knew it, as well, and knew what had to be done. We are the next stage in the evolution of man.”

Jester frowned. “Technically, that’s not-“

He ignored her. “These gifts we have been given… they are simply the effects of the progression of a species to its perfection. We bear the heavy burden of being that which all others strive for. We cannot do wrong, we cannot be judged, we are above the judgements of this world and the next. What we do is by definition right, by virtue of pure nature.” He nodded solemnly to himself. “And current events make things so much easier, yes? If the chaff of this world must be swept away by the storm of war, what of it? The kernels will remain, to sprout and grow and spread.”

Jester tried to interject again. “But… there are so many people dead-“

The professor brought his cane down on the table, making the tableware clatter. “They are _nothing_ ,” he hissed. “Nothing! You _know_ this. You have seen it! They treat you like servants, like subhuman; they use you and abuse you. But they are afraid, because they know what you are – that which will supplant them, annihilate them!” He moved along the table to stand behind Caleb, long-fingered hands on his shoulders. “This war, it is our trial of fire, to see who is strong… and who will burn.”

Caleb closed his eyes. His grip on the knife tightened even more, and Beau could see a drop of blood trickling out between his fingers. She stared at Ikithon. _He’s insane. Who thinks like that?_ Then she remembered the conversation they’d had the other night, and her own words – _they don’t think we’re human. They’re afraid._ She shuddered. _This wasn’t what I meant!_ She looked around at the others. Caduceus had a strange look on his face – a mix of sadness, anger and pity. Yasha was staring blankly at the professor, while Veth and Fjord were looking incredulously at each other. Jester was chewing on a piece of bread with an insincere smile. _At least it’s not just me that thinks this is weird._

Ikithon gave Caleb’s shoulders a squeeze, then let go. “But you will understand this, in time. You just need... to be shown the way. Like Bren was. Do not worry. You will see things my way. It is your destiny.” He took his cane from the table and smoothed back his hair. “Well. If you will excuse me, I will retire for the evening. Feel free to continue your meal – I hear the cook has made a soufflé. I shall see you again in the morning.”

The professor turned without another word and stalked out through the open doors. When the clicking of his cane had receded into nothing, silence spread across the dining hall.

Beau turned to Caleb and started to speak, but he shook his head and let go of the knife he’d been holding. The inside of his palm was cut and bloody where the dull blade had pressed into it. Caduceus sighed, stood up and took the hand in his, enveloping it gently in his long fingers. There was a soft sound, and moss started to spread across the cut, covering it, soaking up the blood and clinging to the skin with tiny rhizoids. Then the moss blackened and crumbled, finally falling away and leaving nothing but pink skin.

Eadwulf made a surprised snort. “You’ve found something interesting, then, Bren. Good for you.” He drained his wine glass and turned to Jester with a sarcastic smile. “Good work on riling the old man up, by the way. Thanks so much.”

Caduceus gave Caleb a pat on the shoulder. “Poor man.”

“I’m not-“

“I meant the professor.”

Beau scoffed. “Poor? _Poor?_ He’s a maniac! It’s… like some sort of cult!”

Caduceus shook his head sadly. “It’s worse than that. The only thing he worships is himself, his own strength. He has nothing, absolutely nothing. Only his belief in his own supremacy. It’s sad.”

Jester looked at Eadwulf. “Do you believe in all that?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” he said and stood up.

“Of course it does!”

He shook his head. Astrid walked up beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“What’s the alternative?” She gestured at Caleb. “To run away, like Bren? Out into a world that hates and fears you, that thinks you’re a freak? Master Ikithon is right in that, at least. The world isn’t our friend. We have a home _here_. A family.”

Caleb looked at her with longing in his eyes. “I asked you to come with me. We could have-“

“You _left_ us, Bren,” she interrupted coldly. “You’ve no high horses to sit on. I don’t know why you’ve come back, but you’re not welcome.”

She turned and marched out. Eadwulf gave Caleb a sour look and followed her. The hall fell silent again. One of the servants came up and placed a soufflé on the table, then bowed and made a hasty retreat, leaving them alone.

Jester sighed. “I’m sorry, Caleb.”

“For what?”

“For making him angry.”

Caleb took her hands and kneeled on the floor in front of her. “That was _not_ your fault. It takes absolutely nothing to set him off. He would rant like that constantly. Wulf was wrong to say that to you.”

She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Alright. I thought I’d done something stupid.”

“Not at all. Don’t worry about it.”

Fjord looked around at the others and rubbed his neck sheepishly. “Alright… that was all… illuminating.”

“No joke,” Veth said with a scoff. “I heard about him, but experiencing it in person… what a bastard.”

Beau looked over at Yasha. “Are you alright? You haven’t said anything all dinner.”

“He is… very sure of himself, isn’t he,” she replied. “They all are.”

Caleb barked out a laugh. “To say the least.”

“They usually are,” Caduceus said with a sad smile. “Until the truth finds them. And it will, sooner or later.” He tilted his head curiously. “Bren?”

Caleb looked away. “I… changed it. I didn’t want anything to do with this when I left. With who I was, then.”

“I can respect that. So. Still Caleb, then.”

“Yes, please.”

Fjord looked around to make sure they were alone. “So… time to snoop?”

Beau nodded and looked at Caleb. “Do you think we’re free to walk around?”

“It seems like it. It’s… obvious that Wulf and Astrid don’t trust me, but I don’t think they’d spy on me. Likely they just want to not see me at all.”

“And the professor?”

“He always stays in his rom after he retires. We were always under strict orders not to bother him.” He shuddered. “He’s a man of very stringent habits.”

Beau nodded. “In that case we should act as fast as we can, try and see if we can find out what it is that they think the weapon is. What the professor can do is impressive, but he’s still just one man. If he’s made some breakthrough that could change the course of a war, there must be evidence of it here.”

Caleb stood up. “We’ll start in the library.”

The castle was cavernous, full of winding corridors and hidden courtyards, but Caleb guided them without hesitation. There were troops patrolling the grounds and corridors, but it seemed as if Ikithon had left instructions, since nobody challenged them. Rather, the soldiers would plaster themselves along the wall, salute and stay like that in nervous silence until the group passed. Once or twice, they met a servant but only briefly, as they scattered instantly.

Jester looked after the fleeing man. “Um, Caleb? They seem… scared.”

“Yes. They would be. This detail was never very popular, other than with the more… unsavoury types.” 

The door to the library wasn’t locked, but the room inside was dark. The only light that filtered in through the high winds was warped and dimmed by the uneven glass. Fjord took a step inside and immediately banged his shin on a side table – something fell to the floor with a clatter, and the captain swore and rubbed his leg.

“We should have brought a lamp…”

“No need.” Caleb went over to a switch in the wall and flipped it upwards, and the room was flooded with bright light. The ceiling and walls were adorned with sconces and chandeliers, each outfitted with electric lightbulbs.

Jester gasped. “Oh… I’ve never seen so many lights in one place! Mama had one in her boudoir and a row on the stage, but this…!”

“He wanted it well lit. Night or day, that wasn’t a hindrance to pursuing the truth. Or what he thinks is the truth.” Caleb picked the fallen bronze bust from the floor and put it back on the table. “I’ll show you where to start.”

It was a high room, two stories at least, sectioned into three levels. The shelves stretched from the floor to the ceiling, the upper sections only accessible by the tall ladders that ran on wheels along the shelves or by the walkways that criss-crossed the open spaces where the floor ended. Spiral staircases connected the levels. There were nooks placed here and there, each with its own electric light, a desk and chair. Caleb led them to the middle of the room and made a sweeping gesture.

“This is the main library. I’d spend hours here, days sometimes. We each had our own private library too, of course. But this is where all the reference literature is, as well as the main body of research.”

Beau took a book at random and started to flip through the pages. “What are we looking for?”

“Anything that has to do with warfare, or mass destruction.”

She looked around at the hundred upon hundreds of books. “Is there an index?”

They spent more than an hour in the library, rifling through notes and diaries, comparing new acquisitions against Caleb’s memory, but to his mounting frustration came up with nothing.

“There’s nothing here,” he said and closed his book with a snap. “No evidence of large-scale operations, just the same kind of research he did before. There’s nothing new that’s big enough to justify them sending us here!”

Caduceus yawned. “Can it be somewhere else? Maybe he’s hidden it away.”

“Perhaps in his study,” Caleb replied and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “But we can’t get there, not tonight.” He stopped. “There might be something…”

“Where?” Beau closed her own book and added it to the pile on the floor.

“The experiment room. We… sometimes we made notes.”

“Alright, let’s head there,” she said and stood up.

“Yes. Let’s.”

“Is something wrong, Caleb?” Veth looked concerned.

“No, I- no. It’s fine. It’s a good idea.” He took his coat from the chair and pulled it on. “This way.”

It was night time now, and the caste was quiet. They only met a single guard on the way, and he made a nervous salute as they passed in silence. Beau could hear him mutter something before they turned a corner. _Freaks, huh? You’re the one protecting that madman, buddy._ The experiment room was several flights of stairs down, in the bowels of the castle. The walls turned rougher and the air turned colder and damper for each stair they went down, until they finally came to the lowest level. There were several doors down here, most of them with heavy locks. Caleb passed them all and stopped in front of a door that had locks as well as heavy padding.

Beau nodded at it. “This it?”

“Yes.” He took a deep breath and pushed on the door.

This room was also furnished with electric lights, but they were naked and harsh, throwing sharp shadows across the floor when he flipped the switch. The rest of the group filed in behind him.

“Caleb… this room...” Jester’s voice wavered.

One side of the room was occupied by a long workbench with rows of surgical instruments and various other implements. Along another wall was a writing desk and a filing cabinet. In the middle of the room stood a metal table, long enough to accommodate a person, with leather straps in each corner. Against the third wall was a chair, furnished with the same kinds of straps. Beside it stood a small, strange machine and a tray with hollow needles and vials of coloured liquid. The floor had several grates in it. Beau leaned down and ran a fingernail along the edge where the metal met the stone, and it came back covered in rust-red grime. She had to swallow hard to not throw up and wiped it frantically against her shirt.

“What kinds of experiments do they do here?”

“Investigations. Tests. Operations.”

Caleb had stopped just inside the door, unable to go any further. He rolled up his sleeve with a shaking hand. His arm was dotted with uneven, white scars.

“He’d insert crystals under our skin, to increase our power. It didn’t work.”

Beau looked at the weird machine. She picked up one of the vials and shook it, watching the black liquid inside slosh against the sides. She put the vial down and poked the needle.

“Those tattoos she had…”

“Yes. It was something he’d just begun to try out when I left. He must have perfected it while I was gone.” He scratched the scars on his arm, leaving red stripes. “We tried to... enhance the Aspects. Unlock new ones.” He hesitated. “And. And. And induce them, in those that… in those that didn’t have them.”

Fjord looked up from the workbench that he’d been studying. “Those that didn’t… Caleb. There was- they took regular people here as well?”

Caleb grimaced. “Not _they_. Us.”

Beau could hear somebody stomp out of the room behind her, and then Yasha hyperventilating outside in the corridor.

“We did what we thought was necessary,” Caleb continued. “We followed orders.” His voice was flat and emotionless. “You heard him. You heard what he said. We believed in it, then. I believed in it.” His nails burrowed into his arm.

Veth grabbed him. “Until you didn’t! You left! It’s not what you think what matters, it’s what you do. You _left!_ ”

Caleb tore his sleeve from her grasp. “Not fast enough! They died, Veth, they died from what we did, we killed them, and then I burned them! They burned because I’m very good with fire, I was always so very, very talented with fire, Veth!”

He fell to his knees and started to bang his fists against his temples, again and again. Veth grabbed his hands to try and stop him, and Fjord and Beau tried to pin his arms down.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry-“

“It’s alright, Caleb, it’s alright!”

Veth struggled with his hands. “We need to get him out of here! He shouldn’t be here! He shouldn’t have to do this!”

Jester yelled into the corridor. “Yasha, help me!”

Jester and Yasha grabbed him, trying their best to make sure he didn’t hurt himself, and carried him up the stairs to one of the main corridors where they laid him down in the moonlight that filtered in from the windows.

“Let me.” Caduceus kneeled down in front of him and took his head between his large hands. “Caleb, look at me. You’re calmer now. You’re safe now. Listen to me. You’re calm…”

As Caleb slowly stopped shaking, mesmerized by Caduceus’ voice, Beau went up and looked out the window. Down in the courtyard, she could see soldiers walking, probably patrolling; on the parapets, sentries lounged, keeping an eye out for anyone approaching. In the squat tower, a single candle burned.

Yasha came up to her and looked out. “We’re trapped here, aren’t we.”

“Yes. The only way to get out now is to finish our mission.”

Without a word, Yasha grabbed her hand and squeezed it, once.


	10. Different motive, same solution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this far. This is the penultimate chapter - I thought it was the last but things got out of hand, as they do.

It took quite a while, but Caleb managed to whether the storm of emotions wracking him. Beau could feel the warm breeze emanating from Caduceus’ hands, and she could swear that they were glowing slightly in the dark. Fjord was crouching silently on Caleb’s other side, one hand on his shoulder while Veth was leaning on his back with a worried expression, looking back and forth from her friend to the chaplain. Jester kept watch at the other end of the corridor. When she started jumping up and down and waving her arms frantically, the others hurried to help Caleb to his feet.

A butler turned the corner, a lit candelabra in hand. When he saw them, he stopped and regarded the party dispassionately.

<If I may disturb you, Herr Ermendrud?>

Caleb cleared his throat. <Yes?>

<The professor instructed me to show your friends to their chambers. If you would follow me?>

Caleb nodded. The butler turned and went back the way he came, and the group followed in silence, Veth with her hand in Caleb’s. The butler took them up a flight of stairs and into a corridor that was brightly lit with gas lamps. He opened a door, then stood back and gestured into the room.

“Here is three chambers for you,” he said in heavily accented English, and indicated two other doors. “Hesitate not to for everything ring – in each chamber is a bellpull. The staff is quite used to requests at odd hours accommodate.”

The butler turned to Caleb. <Your old chambers are prepared for you, Herr Ermendrud.>

“Thank you, I- I’ll sleep here tonight,” he replied and glanced at the others. “If that’s fine with you?”

Jester nodded. “Of course, Caleb!”

The butler looked momentarily taken aback, but rallied quickly. “Very well. Then I shall for the night leave you.” He made a short, sharp bow and left, taking the candelabra with him.

They searched the rooms, but there seemed to be nothing strange going on. The first room they had been shown had all their gear bar the weapons. After a bit of discussion, Beau and Jester took the first chamber, Caduceus and Yasha the second and Fjord, Veth and Caleb the last one. There were only two beds per room, but there was a large, plush sofa that Caleb insisted that he could sleep on. A wardrobe held extra pillows and blankets, and with little ceremony, everybody went to bed.

Beau slept uneasily, tossing and turning until she found herself wide awake in the middle of the night, blinking in the dark, wondering what was wrong. Finally, she caught it – the bed was too comfortable. She’s been sleeping rough for the better part of a year, and to suddenly have a soft mattress and plump pillows felt almost suffocating. In the other bed, Jester was sleeping soundly, curled up under the eiderdown, seemingly unbothered by the unusual comfort. Beau got up quietly and put her uniform on, but left the shoes by the bed. Outside, the hallway was quiet, still lit by the gas lamps. She opened the door across from hers to the room that held three of her companions and peeked in. Veth was splayed out across the bed, snoring deeply. Fjord was sleeping on his stomach, one arm hanging over the side, the covers rising and falling with his breaths. But the sofa was empty. Beau frowned. _He shouldn’t be roaming around by himself. What if that slimy old snake is awake?_

Now wide awake, she padded through the corridors, silent as a cat in her socks. She wondered briefly where Frumpkin had gotten off to, but hoped that the cat was smart enough to keep away for now. She couldn’t find Caleb in the library or in the deserted dining hall. She hid from a pair of soldiers by slipping in behind a suit of armour on display in an alcove and made a grimace at them when they disappeared in the gloom. _The professor has shit security. Good to know_. She was contemplating going down to the dungeon to look when she suddenly heard voices – voices she recognised, coming from a room further down the corridor. She moved up, quiet as a mouse, and leaned against the wall beside the door.

<… don’t understand why you’re back again.> It was a female voice – Astrid.

<I have work to do. I’m not here to stay.> This one was Caleb’s, but much less unsure and wavering now that he was speaking his mother tongue.

<Good. I trusted you, and you abandoned us.>

<I told you, you can still come with me.>

Beau cringed at the deep sadness in his voice. A male voice answered this time. Eadwulf, she realised.

<You know we can’t. We couldn’t then, and we can’t now. You made your call.> Eadwulf hesitated. <And we made ours.>

< _Why_ are you here, Caleb?> Agnes again. <You called us murderers. You swore never to come back, and now you’re here again, grovelling at his feet, begging us to come with you. What’s your game?>

There was a period of silence, followed by a sigh, before Caleb answered. <We’re going to destroy this. All of this. Please, don’t stop me. Stay out of my way.>

_Damn your bleeding heart…!_ Beau cursed inwardly and tensed up, ready to run into the room at the first sign of a struggle. The was no reply for quite a while. Then Astrid spoke again, voice hesitant and confused.

<Why?>

<What?>

<Why are you going to destroy it, Bren?> There was a sound like a chair scraping across a stone floor. <I thought you were here to ask forgiveness of the professor. But you came back to… to tear this down?> She hesitated again. <You never wanted to come back here, you wouldn’t, not even to- to take revenge. It’s not you. You always just wanted to be left alone. This isn’t your idea. Who are you working for?>

Caleb sighed. <The Allies. They got intelligence about what you’re doing here. That you’re developing a new power, something that will lose them the war. They want to stop you by any means necessary.>

There was silence again, and then some whispered conversation.

Eadwulf spoke again. <What are you going to do to professor Ikithon?>

<He… he can’t be allowed to continue. You know what he’s capable of.>

<Yes. We’re aware,> Astrid replied.

The tone in her voice was weirdly irritated. Beau frowned and moved closer, peering in through the slit between the frame and the door. The room was dimly lit by a banked fire, but she could see Caleb’s back, Astrid standing in front of him and Eadwulf perched on the edge of a chair beside her. Astrid looked at Eadwulf and gave a short, low laugh.

<Gods. You were always more pathos than cunning, Bren.>

Caleb sat up slightly. <What do you mean?>

<We weren’t prepared for the fact that it would be you. We thought the Allies would send… professionals. Soldiers. Not you!> Astrid looked at him with a mix of exasperation and sadness. <We thought you were dead.>

<What- wait. It was you? You leaked the information?>

Eadwulf sighed. <Yes.>

<So... you want to stop him too? Make sure he doesn’t help them use this new power to win the war?>

<There _is_ no new power, Bren!> Astrid hissed.

Beau had to bite her lip to keep silent. Astrid rubbed her face with a frustrated gesture.

<We just… you left. It got bad. It got so bad, Bren. He was furious.> She put a hand on Eadwulf’s shoulder. <Wulf mentioned that he’d like to leave and learn from someone else a little while, just to get a new perspective…>

Eadwulf stood up and opened his shirt. His torso was covered in criss-crossing scars. Caleb made a pained noise and raised his hand slightly. Eadwulf quickly turned his back to them and closed his shirt again.

<I almost died. It took me months to heal.>

Astrid sat down and looked intently at Caleb. <He can’t be left alive. He’s too dangerous. So we made sure to leak false information, something that was bad enough that the Allies would make sure that he was taken care of.> She shook her head. <We thought they’d send troops! But nobody gets anywhere, there’s just scrabbling and stalemates. We’ve been waiting for months, sending out new signals as much as we can, but nothing.>

<They _did_ send others. Several expeditions… they never made it here?>

<No. They must have been intercepted before they even got here. I guess that does say something about your troop, after all.>

<Godsdamn right.> Beau stepped into the room.

Eadwulf turned quickly, his hands crackling with energy. But Caleb was faster, jumping in between his old friend and Beau, shielding her. Eadwulf glared at her, then squared his shoulders as the energy dissipated, grounding itself in the floor in small bursts.

<How long have you been standing there?>

<Long enough.> Beau moved Caleb aside gently and stood in front of Astrid, arms crossed. <I think it’s time that I got the others in here, don’t you think?>

Astrid and Eadwulf looked at each other. Then she sighed and nodded.

It didn’t take long to wake the others and gather them in the chamber. When they’d been brought up to speed with recent developments, there was a long silence before there was a small explosion of whispered indignation.

“It was all a ruse?” Veth glared at them. “We did all this for nothing? Went through all that shit because you two can’t solve your own problems?”

Jester nodded. “Right! Caduceus almost got killed!”

“Hey… Well, alright, that happened.”

Fjord just shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve got some nerve. I’m almost impressed.” He grabbed Veth by the coat and pulled her backwards. “But it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

She stopped trying to get at Eadwulf and glared at him instead. “What?!”

“I don’t mean it like that,” he said and put his hands up. “But this is good news in a way, yes? There’s no threat, there’s no weapon. There’s just a very dangerous man, and we already know what to do about that.”

“Hm. All right, sailor boy, I’ll give you that.” She adjusted her coat.

Eadwulf cocked his head to the side and looked suspiciously at Fjord. “You would… do this? Despite the deception? All of you?”

Fjord looked back at him coolly. “From what we’ve seen of this place? Indubitably.” He glanced around at the group. “We are definitely of a mind on this.”

“Hm. Considering you are the only group who managed to make it this far, you may actually stand a chance.”

Veth cracked her knuckles and grinned. “So it’s now? We’re doing this now?”

Caleb sighed. “I think- it seems that it’s far too dangerous to tarry. If he’s getting more and more irrational… He may not have put his ideas into practice yet, but it seems it’s just a matter of time. I don’t want to subject you to any more danger.” He looked at his old friends. “Or you. If I can make sure you’re safe – if we can put an end to this quickly, let’s do it.”

Fjord nodded and turned back to the pair. “So. Are you two going to help us?”

Astrid and Eadwulf looked at each other, then looked away. Neither answered.

Beau snorted. “Cowards. Must be great, having people doing your dirty work for you. At least make sure we have our weapons before you fucking scarper, yeah?”

Eadwulf started to retort, but Astrid put a hand on his chest to stop him. “We can do that. Understand that we have nothing to gain by helping you more than that – if we get caught… the best we can do is to keep out of your way.” She patted Eadwulf’s chest. “Come. Before the castle wakes up.” She snapped her fingers, and the shadows seemed to seep from the corners of the room and gather around them, making them hard to see. “Wait here.” They slunk out of the door and out of sight down the corridor. 

Fjord looked after them, then made a grimace and turned back to the group. “So what’s the plan?”

“We _have_ a plan,” Beau replied. “You said it – the fact that this was all a ruse changes nothing. He’s still a threat to humanity, war or no.”

Veth bared her teeth. “Let’s fucking burn it to the ground. Start with that goddamn torture chamber down below.”

Jester laid a hand on Caleb’s arm. “This all happened a bit fast – have you had all the time you need? Is there anything you’d like to keep?”

He smiled at her. “It’s- I’m alright. I’d rather just get this over with. But if I could get at his notes, his personal journal…”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Fjord said. “But we do the thing first and foremost, yes?”

Caleb looked after Eadwulf and Astrid. “… yes.”

They waited in nervous silence for about ten minutes until the pair returned, weighed down with weapons.

“We had to put the guard to sleep, but here it is,” Eadwulf panted. “We weren’t sure exactly which rifles where yours, but this one-” He let the machine gun fall to the floor with a grunt “-this one, I believe, is yours.” He turned to Veth. “And this one was hard to mistake for anything else.”

She snatched the sniper rifle from his hand and muttered a thanks. “I just hope they didn’t scuff it.”

Astrid placed a heavy sack on the floor. “I know some of you can do better, but for if you get tired…” She pulled out a grenade from the sack. “Some backup.”

The group geared up quickly, handing out the grenades to make sure everybody got a couple. Caleb declined any, however, and went to stand beside Astrid while the others made ready. The three of them stared awkwardly at each other.

<What are you going to do?>

<We’ll… as soon as you start, we’ll leave. We’ve been packed for this for months. We won’t stop you, but if this goes bad, we don’t want any shadow to fall on us.> She hesitated. <I’m… sorry. But… you understand, don’t you?>

He looked mournfully at her. <I wish things were different. I wish you could both come with me. But yes. I understand.>

They stood there in silence until suddenly, Astrid swore softly under her breath and thrust her arms around Caleb. A second later, Eadwulf followed suit. The three of them hugged tightly while the others finished up. Finally, they all let go. Caleb swallowed hard and laid a hand on each of their shoulders.

<I hope you’ll get away safely. Maybe we’ll see each other again someday.>

Eadwulf gave a short, sarcastic laugh. <Let’s hope not. Goodbye… Caleb.> He leaned forward and gave Caleb a short kiss on the cheek, then turned and left the room without another word.

Astrid sighed and gave Caleb a kiss on the other cheek. <Take care of yourself.> She turned to the rest of the group. <Thank you. I hope you make it out alive.>

<So do we,> Beau replied with a frown. <Best start running.>

Astrid nodded and gave Caleb one last look, then followed Eadwulf. Caleb stood and stared after them until Veth went up to him and slipped her hand in his.

“You alright?”

“No,” he said, still looking at the empty hallway. “But I will be. Let’s go below.”

Veth pulled one of the grenades from her belt and hefted it. “Oh, yes. One of these babies should do it-”

“No,” Caleb interrupted. “I want to do it.”

She frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Please. Let me do this.”

She looked apprehensive but tucked the grenade back in her belt. The group, now armed to the teeth, filed out of the little room and quickly found their way to the stairway down into the cellars. As Caleb descended the stairs, Beau followed suit. She stopped and squeezed Veth’s shoulder on the way.

“Keep an eye out for guards, yeah? I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt himself,” she whispered before hurrying after him.

The door to the interrogation room was still slightly askew, and opened easily at his light push. She went up to stand beside him, hand on his shoulder to support him. He let the tiny flame in his hand grow until it had grown to a white-hot ball once again, almost to bright to look at. Beau could see tears running down his face as he flung the clinging fire through the door once, twice, three times; the inside was a raging inferno within seconds. When he made no move to shield himself, she grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him backwards, away from the flames, and steered him towards the stairs. When they were safely away from the fire, she let him go.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, brushing flecks of ash from his shirt. “I got caught up.”

“No worries. You needed that.”

Fjord raised an eyebrow. “You done?”

“For now, yes.”

“Good,” he said with a nod. “Then it’s on, friends. Let’s load up and find that bastard.”


	11. Magician's judgement

On their way towards Ikithon’s quarters, they stopped several times to let Caleb throw a ball of fire into a room. They could hear the peal of an alarm bell somewhere outside in the courtyard. Finally, they stopped outside the library. Caleb hesitated slightly, and Beau could see the pain on his face as he let the blaze build between his hands, but he released it nonetheless. As the fire started to climb along the shelves, devouring book after book, he stumbled and had to grab the doorjamb for support. She grabbed his elbow and frowned.

“Are you alright?”

He tried to stand up, but fell back against the door again. “No, I… I think I overdid it a bit. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Shit. Should have used the grenades. Lean on me, yeah? Caduceus!”

The chaplain took his other arm, and the group moved on towards the main stairs. They hadn’t come far before a small troupe of soldiers with water buckets came running the other way, heading towards the clouds of smoke that were now billowing along the ceiling. They stopped short when they saw the weapons. The officer shouted a command, and the soldiers dropped their buckets and scrambled into position to fire. Fjord grinned and stepped in front of the others. He rubbed his hands together and released two streams of St. Elmo’s fire, hitting the officer and one of the frontmost soldiers, both who toppled to the ground. At the same time, Veth let off two shots in quick succession, dispatching the other soldiers. Fjord nodded at her and shook his fingers, dislodging the last few remnants of static electricity from them.

“They’re rallying. We need to hurry. Which way, Caleb?”

Caleb pushed his lank hair from his eyes and pointed. “Up, then left, then right, then the tower stairs are right there.”

Following his instructions, they soon stood in front a of a plain door that was slightly ajar. Moving quietly, Fjord and Yasha took up positions on both sides of the door. Caduceus supported Caleb to the side as Beau and Jester braced themselves to kick the door down. Beau looked around at the others.

“Ready?” she mouthed.

They nodded. Beau and Jester both gave the door a kick, and they all crashed into the room.

High bookshelves lined the walls. One wall was occupied by a small alchemical laboratory, situated under and around a large window. A large desk stood in the centre on a intricate Persian carpet. The inkwell had toppled, the black ink staining some of the many papers that lay in untidy piles all over the desk and the floor. Another door led to a bedroom, austere and undecorated. The bed was in disarray and the single closet was open, clothes strewn the floor. Yet another door led to a bathroom. What was not in the suite was professor Trent Ikithon.

Veth spit on the floor. “He’s not here!”

Beau sighed. “Shit, of course – he must have gone down when the alarm sounded.” She smacked her forehead. “Gods, we should have thought of that.”

“Hindsight is a bitch,” Veth said with a grimace. “Quick, Caleb – what do you need?”

“He’s taken so much already. I… I don’t know, we don’t have time-”

Fjord ran forward and grabbed a handful of papers. “Fuck it, just take all of it!”

They started to grab books and papers and shovelled them haphazard into Jester’s and Fjord’s backpacks. Veth was looking out the window, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

“Come on, come on…! I can see the flames; we have to go!”

Caleb nodded. “This’ll have to do. I hope there’s something useful…”

“It is what it is. Come on.” Caduceus supported him again as they left the chamber, tracing their way back down the stairs.

“What do we do now?” Jester said as she hefted the now much heavier backpack, taking the stairs two at a time. “Where could he have gone?”

“He must have fled outside,” Beau said. “He’ll be in the courtyard, or in the forest. In any case, we’ve lost the chance of fighting him in here. We’ll have to confront him outside.”

Fjord almost stumbled. “But- the rest of the castle will be out there!”

“Probably,” Caleb replied with a pained sigh. “But what else can we do? Can any of you fly?”

Nobody answered.

“Then out the front we go.”

They managed to get down the stairs and to the front doors without encountering any more guards. Outside, there was a bout of ice-cold sleet coming down, making the stones of the courtyard dark and slick. A small huddle of servants was cowering under the eaves of the firewood shed – the very young and the very old, clad in nightclothes and hastily thrown-on coats, trying their best to keep out of the sleet and out of the way of the guards and other servants. Most of the others were struggling with a fire engine, trying to pump it and direct the jets of water to where the blaze was worst. Much of it was to no avail; Caleb’s clinging fire had done its job and the castle was fast approaching unsalvageable. As their group burst out of the doors, skidding to a halt on the wet cobblestones, several of the guards dropped buckets and spades and reached for their weapons. From behind two officers, they could see the emaciated figure of professor Ikithon, cane in hand. The expression on his face was one of incandescent fury.

Beau grimaced. “Shit. So much for pacifism.”

The professor took a step forward and pointed at them with a finger trembling with rage. “You! This is all your doing!” 

Beau could see the fear on the faces of the soldiers as they looked from the professor to the group, clearly well-conditioned to not do anything except for when explicitly told to. _Ha. Shit security. But good at obeying orders. Like whipped dogs._ Beau sunk down in a fighting stance, giving a quick glance around the group. Yasha gripped the machine gun tighter, and Beau could see green energy begin to crackle inside Fjord’s closed fist once again. She couldn’t see Veth anymore, and gathered that the sniper had quickly disappeared in the confusion. _Good girl._ She looked around for Jester and did a double take when she realised the medic was standing beside her – but also far to the left of them. The professor noticed her staring and whipped his head over. The other Jester waved at him.

Ikithon looked between the two Jesters and sneered. “Amateurish. I told you, girl – you have no discipline. You really think you can pull the same trick on me twice?”

He moved his fingers, and the sigil appeared in the air once more. He flicked it towards the duplicate – and the sigil went through it with no effect. At the same time, the other Jester disappeared from Beau’s side. A shape appeared behind the professor and, with a resonant thump reminiscent of the peal of a huge bell, hit him over the head with a ghostly rifle. As he turned to hit it, the duplicate blew a raspberry at him and disappeared. The professor snarled and grabbed after it, catching only air; then whirled around and screamed at the officers.

“What are you waiting for, you imbeciles? Shoot them! Shoot them now!”

The soldiers rallied, shouting orders. Caleb pushed Caduceus off and gritted his teeth. Beau could see him shaking with exhaustion as he pushed one hand through the other, making a motion that somehow kept on growing, pushing through the moisture of the courtyard, turning it to steam as it went; then burst into a wall of white fire that cut the enemy off from their intended quarry. Then he collapsed.

“Get him,” He panted. “Please… I can’t…”

Beau nodded. “We’ll try.” She looked at Caduceus. “Keep an eye on him?”

“Sure.” Caduceus laid a hand on her arm as she started to move. “Wait. Before you go... be safe.”

He grabbed the symbol of the Mother around his neck and closed his eyes. She could feel the warm, comforting breeze as it enveloped the five of them. Suddenly, the stress and sluggishness in her limbs dissipated, replaced by a feeling of confidence and strength. Beau grinned at him and grabbed Yasha by the arm, pulling her along the wall of fire to flank the confused soldiers. Fjord moved to the other side, but not before pausing for a second to lob two grenades over the wall of fire, moving out as soon as he heard the detonations.

Any semblance of coordination that Ikithon’s order had created had devolved into chaos when the wall of fire had gone up, with soldiers running around both sides to try and find their enemy. Beau could see Ikithon, who had withdrawn to the other side of the courtyard, putting the troops between him and the inferno. She squared her shoulders as Jester ran up beside them.

“Good work on distracting them. Cover me, all right?”

Yasha nodded, hefted her machine gun and opened fire. Jester reloaded her rifle and did the same. Beau dove right towards the nearest soldier, moving much faster than humanly possible as he tried to get his rifle up in time. The first shot went wide, and as the soldier tried to reload Beau was already on him. She drove her elbow into his solar plexus, then the other fist into his face. He collapsed on the ground, and she jumped over him without another look. On one side, Jester used the grenades to scatter and distract their enemy, spreading them out to make targets for Veth. On the other flank, Fjord used his sidearm and the green energy in turn to try and make a path for Beau. A bullet thudded into the ground beside her, and she looked up to see another soldier reloading, too far away for her to reach. Then, there was a familiar crack, and the ground behind the soldier was suddenly covered with blood and brains. As the they fell, she gave a silent thanks to Veth and her sniper rifle. When she looked back to Ikithon, he stood with his hands raised and a self-satisfied smile on his thin lips. Her stomach sank.

The whistling sound was so damn familiar. Beau had already hit the ground before she was really aware of it. When the heat and the blast hit her, turning her over like a leaf in the wind, there was a moment when she was sure that everything that had happened to her, all the weird incidents and adventures, was nothing but hallucinations; that she was still in the pitted hellscape between the front lines at Verdun. Then she hit the ground, rolled over and lay still, staring at the mangled head of a soldier. The rest of the body lay several meters away. The ice in her stomach turned to hot anger.

_He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about them. He’ll kill them all just to get to us._

Ears bleeding, body aching, she stumbled to her feet. Thick, oily smoke was drifting along the ground, obscuring the carnage left by the explosion. As she tried to get her bearings, Jester ram up and grabbed her arm. Yasha joined them, giving them cover fire as Jester gave Beau a quick look-over.

“Are you alright?”

Beau shook her head to get rid of the ringing. “Shit… yeah. I think so.”

“Good, because I have an idea. Drive him towards the wall, right?” Jester pointed to the section of wall behind the professor.

“Right.” Beau grabbed Yasha and shouted in her ear. <Yasha! Shoot at him! Get him to move backwards!>

Yasha snarled and squeezed the trigger again, directing the hail of bullets towards the professor. He made a quick gesture, and a shimmering wall of force deflected the lead slugs; however, the sheer onslaught forced him to retreat, focused on keeping the shield intact. Jester fell to her knees and slapped her hands on the wet cobblestones. She frowned and concentrated, digging her fingers into the cracks between the stones. A verdant green light started to flow from her body, settling like a cloak around her, pooling and flowing down, into the earth. Beau could feel a light shudder under her feet.

Suddenly, whatever Jester was doing was interrupted by the crack of a gunshot, and she screamed and grabbed her arm. One of the officers, a grey-haired, wiry woman, rushed out of the smoke and, discarding her empty sidearm, went for Jester with her sabre. Beau pushed Jester aside and deflected the weapon with her rifle. The officer rallied easily, wielding her sabre with surgical precision. Beau didn’t have time to move out of the way, and she could feel the white-hot pain as the blade slashed her side. But only once; when the officer came back for another blow, Beau’s hands closed around her throat, bringing her forehead into the officer’s face with a crunch. The sabre clattered away. The two of them grappled as Jester, blood running down her arm, touched the ground again and let the green light flow once again.

“Beau! Get down!”

Beau and the officer hit the ground at the same time. The wound in her side burned like fire, and Beau tried not to think about how bad it was. Desperately, she hit the woman’s head against the stones, hoping that wherever Fjord, Caleb, Caduceus and Veth were, they’d be safe enough for whatever Jester was doing. Yasha kept firing, keeping the professor trapped against the wall. There was a deep, tearing, terrible sound – and suddenly, the whole world was moving sideways, then back again. Beau could hear screams and the rumble of falling masonry and saw Yasha lose her balance, dropping her weapon. The wall behind Ikithon was moving, swaying like it was made from water and not from solid stone. He’d fallen to his knees, and across the violently shuddering courtyard she could see his face as the wall started to topple – there was no fear there, just fury. Then the wall fell, and she couldn’t see him anymore.

The dust rose, and the world settled down. Beau looked around, one hand around the officer’s throat, the other raised in preparation for the _coup de grace_. The courtyard was a mess of broken stone and earth with bodies strewn like so many discarded dolls. The servants had already fled, and seeing the tides turn, of the remaining soldiers followed suit, throwing their rifles to the ground and legging it towards the open gates. Beau glanced at them and then down at the officer. A pair of brown, panicked eyes stared back at her from above a broken nose. Beau looked at her, then back up at the no man’s land of the courtyard. She could feel her own pulse in her side, and the blood soaking into her shirt. Slowly, she let go of the officer’s throat.

<If you run, I’ll let you.>

The woman stared at her in disbelief, then nodded frantically. Beau got up slowly and took a step back, allowing the officer to scramble upright. She wiped her mouth and gave Beau a short nod, then half-ran, half-stumbled towards the gates. Beau sighed.

There was no one left but them.

Jester was laying in a heap on the ground, holding on to the ground. Beau put her arms around her and helped her up. Yasha got up as well and helped support the bleeding medic. Jester gave Beau a hard, almost desperate hug, then shrank back when Beau gasped, the open wound in her side pulsing with pain.

“I’m sorry!”

“Don’t worry.” Beau waved her off. “That was impressive, the quake. I didn’t know you could do that.”

Jester cradled her injured arm and gave her a shaky smile. “Neither did I. Not that big. I’ve only… I’ve only made small things before. Not that big. Never that big.”

“Are you alright?”

Caduceus and Fjord were supporting Caleb, basically carrying him as they gingerly picked their way across the rubble. Veth came hopping over the stones from the other side, a big bruise on one side of her face.

Yasha waved. “We’re alive. You? What’s with your face, Veth?”

“Someone decided to unleash a godsdamned earthquake while I was on top of the woodshed,” she snapped back. “Unless that someone can reverse gravity as well, people will be fucking falling down when that happens.”

Caduceus let go of Caleb and frowned at Jester. “You’re wounded.” He raised his hands, but Jester stopped him.

“Check on Beau first. We can put a bandage on this – I don’t know if the bullet is still in there.”

Beau shook her head. “I’ll be alright. We need to see what happened to Ikithon-”

“Sit down and get tended to, private,” Fjord barked. “We can check on the enemy later.”

Beau snorted, then winced. “That never worked, not even from actual officers.”

“Worth a shot,” he said with a shrug. “Just… please accept the help, Beauregard.”

She shrugged, but even that small movement made her gasp again, and she sat down on a block of stone. Caduceus kneeled at her side and carefully peeled the shirt away. She couldn’t see the wound properly herself, but she could hear Fjord murmuring and Yasha drawing in breath between clenched teeth.

“Just relax.” Caduceus pushed the sides of the wound together. The touch of his hands was unbearably painful for a few seconds, but then they became warm, and the pain went away. She relaxed against his shoulder as the faint sounds of plant growth accompanied his gentle touch. Soon, he nodded to himself and stood up. She touched her side and found it covered in greyish pink lichen that crumbled away, revealing nothing but knotted scar tissue, raw to the touch.

Caduceus sighed. “It was a big wound. It’s going to be sore for a while.”

“Better than bleeding out. Thanks, Clay.” She gave his shoulder a squeeze before putting her shirt back on.

They put a bandage on Jester’s arm before gathering their things. Slowly, they moved slowly towards the pile of rubble that had been the western wall. One of the small watchtowers had toppled along with the wall, adding to the mess of stone and masonry. From underneath the rubble, a liver-spotted, thin hand poked out.

As they stared at it, the fingers twitched.

“Godsdammit…”

Jester and Yasha pushed the stones aside, revealing the body of the professor. He was horribly maimed; Beau could see that several bones were broken. But he was, undeniably, still breathing, albeit in short, painful gasps. As the weight of the stones was removed, his eyelids fluttered open. His steely gaze flickered around before coming to rest on Caleb, and he gave a wheezing laugh.

“Bren... I never thought… I never thought it’d be you. That you… you would be the strongest.” He tried to draw a breath into his crushed chest. “Do it then… do it, my boy. I welcome it.” He smiled placidly and stretched his hand towards Caleb.

Caleb stared at him. One hand rose, like of its own accord. But then, Caduceus laid his own on top of it and pushed it gently downwards.

“I’m sorry, but no.” The chaplain turned to look at Ikithon. “You don’t get to do that. He’s gone through enough already.”

The smile vanished, and Ikithon’s face contorted into a sneer of contempt. “Traitors…! You’ll amount to nothing. Nothing-”

“You need to be quiet now.”

His eyes suddenly lost all colour, becoming deep and dark as an oil slick. He smiled still, that soft, calm smile, as he raised a hand, then closed it slowly, like he was squeezing the water from a sponge. Ikithon contorted, coughing black sludge onto the wet cobblestones. He wheezed, trying to get air, but his lungs had stopped working. Purple-black bruises appeared on his throat and hands as he reached out, trying to use whatever power was left in him, but Caduceus closed his hand into a fist. The professor’s head hit the ground, eyes staring unseeing into the distance.

Caduceus let his hand unclench and fall to his side. “Let’s go.” He turned and started walking towards the open gates.

Caleb stared at Ikithon until Fjord gently steered him away. The others followed suit, but not before Veth stopped to give the corpse a swift kick.

Outside the gates, Beau turned and looked back at the sanatorium, outlined against the slow light of dawn. The flames licked the sky, edged with blue and green. The blaze had overtaken the castle entirely, and with a low rumble, the squat tower collapsed in on itself in a shower of sparks. From the direction of Tiefenstein, she could hear shouts and the sound of vehicles.

They ran. Which way, Beau wasn’t sure. They were all tired and drained, and there was nothing as important as getting away. It was hours before they dared to rest. A rocky outcropping in a deep gully provided enough cover for them to be able to relax.

While the others made sure their hideaway was secure, Caduceus looked at Jester’s arm. It turned out that the bullet had gone through and got caught inside her sleeve, and fell to the ground with a clatter as Yasha cut the sleeve open. As Caduceus let creeping vines envelop her arm, Jester took the bullet and tucked it away in a side pocket.

Yasha sat down with a sigh and petted the machine gun. “I think I’m going to call it Magician’s Judge.”

Fjord chuckled. “Heh. Fitting.”

After attending to Jester, Caduceus took out the Primus, and nearly dropped it. Beau caught it before it smashed into the ground.

“Thank you,” he said with a sigh.

She righted the bundle and looked at him with concern. “Are you alright?”

“No.”

She helped him screw the Primus together. “Because of the… the thing? The Ikithon thing?”

“Yes. I’m not fond of… doing that. But it was necessary.”

She sat back and watched him pick out the herbs for tea. “The quickening and the rot. Like you said.”

He smiled a little. “Yes. Some things need to end for other things to begin.”

Fjord dragged a tired hand through his hair. “Top brass will be happy, at least. Even if he wasn’t the threat they thought… it’ll be one less variable in the great equation. They’ll keep their promise. Probably. Anything we ask for.”

Nobody answered. Caduceus finished making the tea, and mugs were handed around. They all sat in silence, nursing their wounds, eating of their rations and drinking of the brew. It had a strange taste; calming and rejuvenating, but a with a bitter aftertaste.

Beau looked at each of them, and realised that the feeling she’d felt before the fight with the deserters was back. She was happy with these people. They felt so much more like family than anything she’d ever experienced. _I don’t want this to end,_ she thought suddenly. _I don’t want to go back to the war. Can’t we stay like this? Can’t we just be us?_

_I really want it to be just us._

She cleared her throat. The others looked up from their mugs. She bit her lip and plunged forward.

“About this mission. I’m thinking…. This is… Right. So.” She took a deep breath. “For me? I don’t… I don’t know how you all feel, but… I could just go. Right now. Screw the war, right? Screw all of them. Screw going back there. We could all just leave. All of us.”

The others stared at her. She felt a blush creep up her neck, and felt her body tense up to run, or fight whoever was going to start laughing. She looked down at her hands, closed so tight around the mug that the fingertips were turning white.

“I’d like that very much.”

She looked up. Caduceus was smiling warmly at her.

“I had a dream. I was supposed to come here. You remember that I told you? But I was so confused… the war didn’t feel like the right reason. Now I know. It was this. Finding you.” He looked around at the others. “I’ll do what everybody else wants. Consensus, right? But we should do it together. We’re supposed to. Something ended, but something began. This is a beginning.”

Beau let go of the breath she’d been holding and looked at the others. Jester was making small squeaks behind her hands.

“Jester?”

“Yes!” Jester clapped her hands together. “I like being with you all too! I mean, I still want to go home to my mama now and then. But I hated being a medic! It’s much more fun with you. Even if it’s dangerous!” She threw her arms around Veth. “And I love having friends! I never had friends before. I would really like to stay with you.”

Veth looked embarrassed but returned the hug. The rest of the group was silent. Then, Fjord sighed.

“I… I wouldn’t mind. I’ve killed a bunch of people, and there’s no difference. I still miss him.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Killing more won’t bring him back, will it.”

“No,” Caduceus said. “It won’t.”

“And… being with you have already given me so much. I’d like to see what more we can do. What things you can teach me.” He smiled. “It’s not like the army would give me anything better.”

Veth stood up and put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “I don’t care. Whatever we do, it makes no difference to me. I go where Caleb goes.”

Fjord picked up a piece of hard tack and threw it at her. “You’re a horrible liar! Don’t act like you only care about _him_ , you little thief.”

She dodged the tack and grinned at him. “All right, I like you, you weasel! A damned mess, you are, but of course I like you.” She looked around at the others, almost shyly. “I like all of you bastards. It’s been a lot of fun travelling with you.” She squeezed Caleb’s shoulder. “What do you say?”

He ran his hands down his face and laughed. “Well… in all honesty. In all honesty, I hadn’t really planned on returning to the Allies.” He looked almost embarrassed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. There was already so much subterfuge.”

Beau nodded and waved her hand. “We get it. The way you have been treated…”

“There’s strength in numbers. If he was wrong about everything else, he was right about that – we should look out for each other. Us freaks.” He reached up and took Veth’s hand. “I’ll come with you.”

They all turned to the last member of their little group. “Yasha?”

The Russian had been listening and turning the little disc Caduceus had found over in her hand. She smiled.

“Maybe…” She looked at the disc. “Maybe I’ve been wrong. I’ve been trying to atone. Maybe I have nothing to atone for.” She leaned back. “I need time to think. But I have nothing to return to.” She gave Beau a quick glance. “And maybe something to stay for.”

Beau felt her heart skip a beat for reasons that, for once, had nothing to do with war or fear.

Jester drank the last of her tea and put the mug down. “So… how can we do it?”

Fjord threw his hands wide. “We should just… disappear. Accidents happen. We died in the fire. Heroes of the Empire. Of several empires, even.”

“Where to? It’s war everywhere,” Jester replied. “And now… I don’t know if it’s ever going to stop.”

Caleb rubbed his chin. “Switzerland. They’re neutral. Or Sweden? We can lie low there until the war stops, then go somewhere else.” He turned to Caduceus. “Australia, maybe?”

The chaplain took a sip of his tea. “Hm. There are places to lose yourself, in the big countries.” He smiled. “I’m ready to go home.”

“Let’s find a place to rest a little while,” Caleb said. “See if we can find a nice _gasthaus_ that likes money and doesn’t ask questions. And then… we can see where we want to go. We can always change our minds later.”

Yasha stood up. “Never too late to make changes.” She stretched, blinking against the late morning light.

Beau looked at her and smiled. “Yeah. You’re right. It’s not too late until you’re dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are, at the end. Thank you so much for following along with me for something that turned out to be so much longer and more complex that I'd ever anticipated. I've never written anything this long before and I'm happy that you've read it.


End file.
